


Feverbright

by aggiepuff



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aegon and Rhaenys Targaryen Live, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence - War of The Five Kings, Catelyn Tully Stark Lives, Dead Rhaegar Targaryen, Elia Martell Lives, Elia Martell and Lyanna Stark are in Love, Everybody Lives, F/M, Fix-It, Grey Wind Lives, Jon Snow Knows Nothing, Jon Snow is Not Called Aegon, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, Lyanna Stark Lives, R Plus L Equals J, Rhaenys Targaryen Lives, Rhaenys is Talisa, Robb Stark Lives, Robb Stark is King in the North, Talisa is Rhaenys, The bad guys die, Theon Greyjoy Lives, Viserys Targaryen Lives, Ygritte Lives (ASoIaF)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:08:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 36,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23524351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aggiepuff/pseuds/aggiepuff
Summary: Westeros is a strange place, The North even stranger. She knows she was born in the capital, that she lived the first years of her life in a palace called the Red Keep, but she does not remember. What she remembers, surrounded by strangers in a strange land, is her mothers, her brothers, and her sister. She remembers her family once ruled seven squabbling kingdoms until the greed of a Stag and the madness of a Dragon cast them down.But the downfall of her family matters not. What matters is how they rise from the ashes. What matters is her mission in The North. So, she watches and listens and sends word to her Dragon family across the Narrow Sea. The Young Wolf is becoming a king here, in this strange land, and she wonders: is he an ally to be made or just another obstacle to the Iron Throne?
Relationships: Elia Martell/Lyanna Stark, Elia Martell/Lyanna Stark/Rhaegar Targaryen, Robb Stark/Rhaenys Targaryen (Daughter of Elia), Talisa Maegyr/Robb Stark
Comments: 194
Kudos: 174





	1. Chapter 1

Rae spins, the heat of flames licking at her skin, and grins at the sheer joy of the freedom in the dance. 

The day is over, the battle won, and she survived. What’s better, there are less wounded than yesterday and she was able to leave the stink of the Healers’ tents to those even better able to care for the sick and injured. 

The beat hammered out by the drummer boys is a steady rhythm to match her heart and she dances, pretending she doesn’t see the men leering or hear their calls. 

Magic rises with the flame and she weaves it with every twirl, every swing of her flaming baton. Warmth and comfort and life flow in the wake of her flames and she casts it as a net over the camp, urging life and vitality back into weary soldiers, reigniting the fires in the souls so they may fight again the next day.

This is not the paltry death fire of the Red Priests and their Lord of Light. This power is far older, formed of love and life, the warmth against deadly cold and the sustaining heat of the summer sun. 

She dances that energy into every soldier, every man, woman, and child, into every animal. She hopes it will be enough to keep this King in the North fighting the Lannisters until they are nothing more than broken beasts.

When the drums begin to die, she throws her baton high in the air, spinning beneath it. With her last spin she releases her fire magic, catching her baton and slamming to her knee, bringing the ends of her flaming baton to the dirt and extinguishing the fire. 

In the sudden darkness the soldiers cheer for her show and she scrambles away with exalted laughter, hiding her face in the shadows as she darts between the tents, reveling in her freedom. No brothers, no sister, no mothers. No one but herself and she’s back in the land of her birth, though thousands of miles north of her home and further even from where her Spear-Mother schemes with the Princes of Sand and Sun. 

“Talisa?”

Rae whips around, hiding the staff behind her back. Healer Alys’s face is in shadow but Rae can feel her disapproval even in the dark. “Yes?”

“Why are you skulking in the dark?”

“I didn’t realize I was skulking.”

Healer Alys huffs. “Best get to bed, girl. We’ll have work in the morning.”

Rae nods. “Of course.”

* * *

Another battle comes on the morn. The Battle of Oxcross, they call it, for the nearby Westerlands town. 

Rae swallows her bile and sorts through the bodies left to rot on the field. A man in Lannister red and gold has an infected foot and she cannot leave him.

“No, don’t! Don’t! Please!” he cries as she tries to move him to a stretcher.

“Shh,” she croons. “It’s alright, it’s alright.” 

Healer Marys props him up and Rae pulls off the poor man’s boot. The stench of blood and infection fills her nose. “The rot’s set in.”

“Please, don’t,” he whimpers.

“It’ll be alright,” Rae promises, pulling a length of twine from her apron.

“No!” the soldier cries, trying to push her away. “Please don’t. It’ll get better soon! It doesn’t even hurt!”

Rae scowls. “If I don’t, the rot will spread and you’ll lose more than just your leg.”

“No, you can’t!” The poor boy tries to throw Rae and Healer Marys off but his struggles are weakened by bloodloss.

Rae’s heart twists for him but this is war and the price paid. There is no changing it.

A man with auburn hair dressed in Stark armor appears, gripping the poor Lannister man by the shoulders and helping Healer Marys keep him still. For a moment Rae thinks he will try to stop them from helping the poor boy, but, instead, he holds the Lannister man down. 

“Ser!” the boy cries. “Please, ser! I can’t lose -”

“You’ll die if she doesn’t,” the Stark man says in a thick Northern burr.

“I don’t want to be a cripple, please!”

Rae ignores the Lannister soldier and the Northman, wrapping her twine around the man’s leg and pulling it tight as a tourniquet. Her bonesaw is in her medical crate and she pulls it out, the sharp teeth glinting dully in the hazy sun.

Another Northman dressed in all black stands over her and the wounded soldier and Healer Marys and the Stark man. “Surely one of our men needs your attention more than this cub.”

Anger flashes through Rae like lightning. She has been planning for war since she could walk but that does not mean she enjoys the casualties. All men deserve care and consideration, even if they are enemies. “Your men are not my men,” she snaps.

The red haired Northman shoves a ball of cloth into the Lannister soldier’s mouth. “Bite on it,” he orders, shoving the boy to the ground. “It’s better than biting your own tongue, believe me.”

The boy struggles in vain but the red haired Northman’s hold is strong and Rae gets to work removing the infected foot. For the rest of her days she will never forget the feel of a saw going through bone and this is not even her first amputation or her hundredth this week. 

The boy faints when Rae’s saw is halfway through his ankle and Rae sends a prayer of thanks to any merciful god who might be listening; it is good he does not suffer through all of the pain.

She doesn’t notice when the red haired Northman releases the boy’s shoulders, standing and stepping back. She binds what is left of the Lannister man’s leg, packing the amputation with linen so he will not bleed out before hoisting him onto the stretcher and sending him off to the Healers’ tents. 

Then she goes to her next patient. And her next. And her next. Before she realizes, the sun is sinking below the horizon and her hands, apron, and sleeve guards are drenched in blood. She sighs. If only this is the bloodiest battle she will ever be in.

An uninjured Riverman helps her load a Northman onto a cart and she double checks his bandages before sending him off with a weary smile. Her back aches and her sore legs shake beneath her dusky blue skirts. She wants nothing more than to collapse into a warm bath as she did long ago in the manse of Pentos. 

But she is not in Pentos, she is in The North of Westeros. Or is it the Riverlands or Westerlands? She’s too tired to remember. All she can do is wash her hands with water from the wineskin hanging from her cart.

“What’s your name?”

Rae turns, blinking tiredly. The red haired Northman stands several feet from her, looking at her with bewitching blue eyes. Rae has always liked blue eyes.

She kneels down, closing the lid of her medicine box. “Talisa,” she answers, giving the name of her Volantene teacher in the healing arts, swinging the strap of her medicine box over her shoulder and standing. It’s heavy and she almost stumbles.

“Your last name?”

Rae snorts. She might have grown as a weed of a dead House in Essos but she knows Westerosi customs and the importance of last names. “You want to know what side my family fights on?”

The red haired man’s mouth twitches. “You know my family name,” he says. 

“No,” Rae answers, “I don’t.”

Surprise flickers across the man’s face. “Really? You do not know who I am?”

Rae lets her eyes rove his body. He is broad and strong, built stocky rather than the tall of most Northmen. His red hair is dark and curly over a piercing blue gaze. His jaw is strong, chin stubborn.  _ Handsome. _

“I do not,” she answers truthfully. There are so many soldiers here and she is more accustomed to the presence of only her family rather than thousands of men.

The Northman smiles, teeth white and straight. “I am Robb Stark.”

Rae’s stomach drops.  _ Robb fucking Stark. _ By all the gods. The very man she was sent here to watch.

“Now you have me at a disadvantage,” prompts the King in the North.

“That must be very strange for you,” Rae comments instead, loading her box onto her cart and ignoring the way her stomach flutters. "Do you know the names of the men you killed today?"

The Northman scowls. "They killed my father."

Rae sighs. She doesn't know why she said that. The Northmen have every reason for this war. Her own Wolf-Mother swore to burn King's Landing to ash when she heard of Lord Stark's fate. Still, she can't keep her tongue still. "That boy did?" she asks mildly.

"The family he fights for did."

Rae frowns. If it is Robb's intention to kill every man who fights against him simply because it is expected for where they are born then - well, it is for the best if he doesn’t.

“It is true you are kinder than most with your prisoners, not allowing that man to flay them alive, but yours is a basic human decency. That boy probably never held a spear before, was born a fisherman’s son who grew up near Lannisport. He is not friends with the Baratheon Brat.”

“I have no hatred for the lad.”

Rae shrugs, unsure of her footing or why she is picking a fight with the King in the North. “Perhaps that knowledge will help his foot grow back.”

A pail of bloodied, dirty water sits forgotten in the grass. She grips it by the handle and turns it over, spilling the water onto the earth before returning to her cart and stowing it away. 

Robb Stark follows her. “You’d have us surrender,” he says in false reassurance, “end all this bloodshed. I understand. The country would be at peace and life would be just under the righteous hand of good King Joffrey."

Rae grits her teeth at his sarcasm. “You’re going to kill Joffrey?”

“If the gods give me strength.”

Rae turns on Robb Stark, meeting his gaze as the princess she is though he does not know it. “And then what?” she challenges. 

This is why she returned to Westeros and came North rather than joining her mother in Dorne: to get the measure of this man. If he intends for the Iron Throne then she will have to kill him. She desperately hopes he does not intend for the Iron Throne.

“I don't know.” He frowns, thinking. “We'll go back to Winterfell. I have no desire to sit on the Iron Throne.”

Relief washes over Rae in a tidal wave. Still, perhaps this is the time to plant a seed. “Then who will? Another Baratheon? Certainly not a Lion? A sane Targaryen would not be so bad."

“There are no more Targaryens.”

Rae shrugs, pretending nonchalance. “I hear there are three across the Narrow Sea and they have dragons.” She hops into the back of her cart and hits the side to signal the drover she is ready. “But that doesn't really matter now, does it? Now you are too busy fighting to overthrow a king whose crown you have no intention of taking.”

“First you have to win the war before choosing who wears the crown!” Robb calls after her.

“I look forward to it!” Rae calls back.


	2. Chapter 2

Rae stares into the fire, the mending in her hands forgotten. The yellow-orange heat flickers across her skin and her eyes flutter, basking in the comforting warmth. She reaches out a hand, letting the flame lick her fingers. 

“Lady Talisa!”

Rae jerks from her reverie, spinning on her seat. Robb Stark strides towards her, smiling and bright eyed. The sun shines over his shoulders, casting his dark red hair in a halo of fire. Her insides twist and she ignores her burgeoning crush. Since that meeting after the Battle of Oxcross she has watched the Young Wolf. He is a good man, strong and fierce but strangely kind. He greets every man with a smile and truly cares for his people. He will be a good leader, she thinks, if he survives.

She stands. “Your Grace.” The silence between them is tense and she shifts on her feet. 

“What are you doing this fair evening?”

Rae smiles, holding up her mending. “Darning socks, You Grace.”

“That seems hardly the work for a lady.”

Rae flushes. Oh, if only this king knew. “I am not sure I’m a lady, Your Grace. Westerosi customs are very different from what I know.”

Robb laughs. “I grew up here and I find it difficult to keep the rules straight. Still,” he smirks down at her, leaning toward her, a glimmer in his blue eyes, “if I remember my lessons, a woman of noble birth is always called a lady.” He frowns, tilting his head. “Unless she’s a queen, or a princess.”

Rae bites her lip. She thinks she did a good job concealing her mothers’ lessons in nobility. “Why are you so sure I’m of noble birth?”

Robb looks into her eyes, intent and sure. “Because it’s obvious,” he says.

He is too beautiful. Rae’s heart understands the look in his eyes even if her head does not and it thumps loudly in her chest. She forces her voice to cool casualness. “What if I told you my father sold lace on the Long Bridge of Volantis, and my mother, my brother and I lived with him above our shop?”

She hates to lie to him but there is nothing for it. Her loyalties are to House Targaryen. To her Spear- and Wolf-Mothers. To a Dragon-Father she does not remember and a little brother who is his image. To an uncle who is a brother and an aunt who is her sister. Rae can see the possibility of loving this Wolf King but she will not allow herself that joy. 

Robb steps closer, a smirk on his mouth. “I’d call you a liar.”

Rae smirks back, she cannot help it. “Not very noble to accuse a lady of dishonesty.”

Robb’s eyebrows rise and mirth sparkles in his blue eyes. Rae’s cheeks flush and a true smile tugs at her mouth. “I always thought I was a brilliant liar.”

Robb huffs a laugh. “Better at amputations, I’m afraid.”

Rae has no reply. Around them the camp bustles with men, the clang of armor against steel and the stomping of horses filling the air. Rae looks around, trying desperately to think of something to say. She wants to keep Robb Stark’s attention for as long as she can, even if this is to be their last meeting. 

“Quite a pretty spot,” Robb says, following her gaze to the green meadow marred by war.

Rae grabs onto the topic. “Will we be here long?”

Robb frowns. “I couldn’t really discuss troop movements with you.”

“I’m not a spy,” Rae lies with a smile.

Robb smiles back. “Of course, a spy would deny being a spy.”

Rae laughs and pulls a letter from her pocket; a letter written in High Valyrian she means to send to her mothers and sister and brothers. “You’re right,” she says. “You’ve found me out. I’m writing a letter to the Lannisters. ‘The Young Wolf is on the move.’” Her smile grows even as the lie tastes like ash. 

Robb's smile grows into a grin. “Perhaps you’d join me...If you’ve got time, of course, for, well-” he stumbles over the invitation and Rae finds herself utterly charmed.  _ Bloody hell. _ She likes the Stark king.  _ Fuck. _

Robb is saved from his bumbling by a thin, red haired woman approaching, a tall mountain of a woman at her back. “Robb,” the woman calls.

Robb turns and Rae looks away. She recognizes Lady Catelyn Stark. She has seen her around the camp and has tried her best to avoid her. Rae doesn’t know if Lady Catelyn ever met Elia Martell but she will not risk it. Not when Rae is her mother’s image. 

“Mother,” Robb says, embracing her. Then he pulls away and turns. “Mother, this is Lady Talisa.”

Rae stiffens. 

“She’s been helping with the wounded,” Robb continues, oblivious to Rae’s discomfort and his mother’s frozen smile. “She’s been very, uh, helpful.”

“Lady Talisa,” Lady Catelyn greets her. Rae wonders if the Stark matriarch can see Dorne in her face.

Rae dips her head respectfully. “Lady Stark.”

Lady Catelyn eyes her, taking in her Essosi dress, dark skin and black hair. “Lady Talisa…?” she prompts. 

Rae swallows, fumbling for a name. “Maegry,” she answers, taking the name from a noble family in Volantis whose patriarch had visited her family in Pentos once. 

“Maegyr?” Lady Catelyn frowns. “Forgive me, I do not know this name.”

“It is an uncommon name here, my Lady,” she explains, fighting to keep her voice steady, “but an old name in Volantis. Excuse me, my Lady. Your Grace.” She dips a quick curtsey and flees.

Safely away from the Starks, Rae fumbles for the letter in her pocket. The curling, High Valyrian words are addressed to her brother, detailing the state of Westeros in a cypher only she and her family know. She adds a quick note in a shaking hand:  _ I have come to the attention of Robb Stark. I do not know what this means but I will do my best to keep my family informed. _

There, that’s all she can say without being accused of spying were her letter found and somehow decoded. It is always better to be overly cautious than take unnecessary risks.


	3. Chapter 3

Rae ducks behind a tent when she hears his voice. How has she come to this, hiding from man?

Oh, she knows very well how. _Stupid bloody charming Northman._

Robb Stark passes by her hiding place and she watches him walk amongst his men. If her mothers ever learn - hell, if Vis and Eggy ever learned of this she will never hear the end of it. Only Dany would understand and none of that matters because her family is across the Narrow Sea and she is here, in The North, acting as their spy.

Rae melts into the shadows of twilight, trying her best to forget King Stark’s pretty blue eyes. Instead, she returns to her tent, a simple thing near the large multi-tent maze that makes up the Healers’ tents. Beside it, her horse drowses and she lightly touches the rune burned into the leather of his halter. It’s meant to keep others from looking at him too closely and seeing he is far more than a standard carthorse. The same rune is burned under the seat of her cart, right above where she stores her sword. 

She checks Dark Sister under the wagon seat before ducking into her tent. The small brazier at the center springs to life as she enters, casting light into every corner and chasing away the shadows.

She sits upon her bedroll with a tired sigh. Her feet ache and she desperately wishes for the pampering of her youth that she took for granted.

Her attention turns to the fire, letting the warmth soak into her bones. She is too tired for magic tonight, too tired to even think of dancing fire into the soldiers, let alone herself. Far too tired to scry, no matter how much she longs for a glimpse of her family.

Loneliness is an ache in her chest. Rae has never been good at being alone. Always she was surrounded by her family, by Vis and Eggy and Dany and her Spear-Mother and Wolf-Mother. Even when she was away from her family she ran through the streets of Pentos, laughing with street children and learning from the fire dancers. 

Rae rubs her eyes. “ _Oh, muña. Nyke miss ao,_ ” she whispers to the empty air. 

“And what language was that?”

Rae topples to her side with a small shriek. Her heart pounds in her chest and she scrambles around. 

Robb Stark stands in the entrance of her tent, looking down at her with a half smile. 

“You scared me, Your Grace,” she gasps. 

“I apologize,” Robb says without a drop of contrition, “it wasn’t my attention.”

“Of course not, Your Grace. Is there something I can help you with?”

“No, I just, ah,” he looks around. “You have a lovely tent.”

Rae snorts following his gaze. Her tent is just big enough for her bedroll, the brazier and her personal crate of medical supplies. “I suppose.”

Something pushes the tent flap open behind Robb. A great grey head appears at Robb’s waist, golden eyes glimmering in the flames. Rae’s jaw drops. “Is - is that…?”

She had heard Robb Stark had a direwolf. A bloody direwolf. His massive head is as long as her torso, the viciously sharp, white teeth as long as her fingers. She stares at him, entranced. “What’s his name?” she whispers.

Robb buries his hand in the wolf’s ruff. “Grey Wind.”

“He’s beautiful.” 

"Thank you."

"I don't suppose he's friendly," Rae sighs. She turns, digging into her pack. "I have some jerky here if you want to…" She turns back around, dried meat in hand, to find a great wet, black nose sniffing at her, inches from her face. She freezes.

"It's alright," Robb says and she can hear him smiling though she does not dare take her eyes from the huge beast to look. "He smells your jerky. Hold your hand out as if feeding a horse, palm flat."

Slowly, Rae holds out her hand, palm up, five strips of jerky laying on her palm. The questing nose quickly finds the treats and the massive direwolf plops his great furred rump onto the ground as he delicately chews on the jerky.

“He likes you.”

Rae watches, entranced, as the direwolf finishes the jerky and noses at her hand, pink tongue darting out to lick her skin. She giggles. “That tickles,” she informs the wolf.

Behind Grey Wind, Robb settles onto the ground as if he intends to stay a while. Rae absently wonders if she has tea or ale she might offer - she doesn’t. 

“I don’t mean to sound impertinent,” Rae says, eyeing him, “but why are you here?”

Robb looks around, unable to meet her gaze. Finally he shakes his head with a laugh. “You know,” he says, “I’m not sure.” His blue eyes flick to her. “I saw you hide earlier. Did I do something to offend, my Lady?”

“Oh, no, Your Grace, I simply did not want to bother you.”

Robb’s blue eyes are steady and dark. “You could never bother me.”

Butterflies erupt in Rae’s stomach. She looks away, twisting the edge of her bedroll in her hands. The jerky gone, Grey Wind shifts, stretching out beside the fire, his great head plopping onto Robb’s lap.

Robb rubs his wolf’s ears absently. “Tell me about your family,” he says. It’s almost an order.

Rae looks at him sharply. “Why do you want to know of my family?”

“To distract myself,” Robb answers with an easy smile, suddenly looking far, far older, “if only for a moment.”

Rae forces breath into her lungs. He does not ask because he knows. He is simply curious. “My brother Vis is the oldest,” she says. “I am next, then I have a little brother and sister - twins.”

Eggy is almost nine months older than Dany but the two are almost identical. It makes her smile to think of them as twins. 

“Troublemakers, are they?”

“A little, yes. Dany - my sister - she loves to laugh and her heart is of gold. You’ll never meet a kinder person, but she is always off on one adventure or another. And Eggy - he’s the baby - he would be at home among your Maesters, always with his nose in a book.” She sighs at the memory of her family, smiling. “But then those two will get an idea in their heads and they can’t be persuaded. They once began an all-out war in the middle of a feast hall, throwing food and jeering. They hit a prince straight in the face!”

“The little devils!” Robb laughs.

“Oh yes,” Rae giggles, flopping onto her side, stretching along her bedroll, lost in the memory. “Our parents were not happy. They are never allowed at another feast day.” She wipes the mirth from her eyes. “And then there was the time they poured dye into the potion Vis used for his hair - he’s very vain, you see, and blond - and his hair was pink for months.”

Robb winces, touching at his own hair. “Don’t tell that to my sister Arya,” he says. “She’ll want to do that to Sansa.”

Rae shifts to her side, propping up her head to look at him. “What are they like, your sisters? I know you march for King’s Landing to save them from the Lannisters but I never hear anyone talking about them.”

Robb stares down at his hands buried in Grey Wind’s fur. Rae fears she overstepped. Then, he smiles, small but there. “Sansa is a true lady,” he says. “Good at embroidery and singing and the harp. She’s the well behaved one. But Arya…”

“A little devil?” Rae parrots his words.

Robb nods with a soft laugh. “Yes. A little devil. She was always after Father to let her learn archery and swordplay and she used to throw food at Sansa when she thought no one was looking. We called her Arya Underfoot. They’re both clever, of course. Mother made sure of that. And they both always reminded me of cats - though very different sorts of cats.” That last comes almost as an afterthought and Robb smiles, looking at Rae.

“Cats are excellent creatures to emulate,” Rae says, meeting his smile. 

“Arya would try to claw my eyes out if she heard I think she’s catlike.”

“As any big brother deserves.”

Robb barks a laugh but a moment later a shadow crosses his face and weight seems to fall on his broad shoulders. Rae bites her lip, sitting up. “You’ll get them back,” she says firmly. _Lest they are already dead._ She ignores the thought. By Fire and Blood, Unbowed, Unbent and Unbroken, she will see Robb reunited with his sisters. 

The silence grows between them, somewhere between comfortable and awkward. After a moment, Robb sighs. “I’d best go.” He and Grey Wind stand. He pauses at the tent opening to give her a bow. “Thank you, Lady Talisa, for your company.”

Rae hurries to stand, curtseying despite protesting legs and feet. “It was my honor, Your Grace.”

Robb gives her one last smile then disappears through the tent flap, leaving Rae alone once more.

Rae collapses back onto her bedroll. She stares into the fire, hands going to the mess of her long black braid and carding her fingers through the strands. 

Robb Stark is a good man. The love in his eyes when he spoke of his sisters was testament to that. 

It is difficult for a woman not to love a man who loves his family so dearly as to start a war to keep them safe. Robb Stark’s devotion to protecting his family and all of his people sends a flutter through Rae’s heart. 

_Damn it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Valyrian Translations
> 
> Oh, muña. Nyke miss ao - Oh, Mother. I miss you.


	4. Chapter 4

Rae reads the letter greedily, taking in the disaster at Qarth told in Vis’ blunt prose. Then the handwriting changes to Eggy’s looping curls as he describes sailing from Qarth to Astapor. The last paragraph is from Dany, detailing her fears and triumphs and describing the ever-growing nature of her three pets. Rhaegal seems to have bonded with Eggy, Viserion with his namesake, and Drogon never strays too far from Dany's side. 

Rae smiles at the description of the dragons’ antics and tries to ignore the niggling jealousy in a shadowed part of her heart. Let her siblings have their dragons. None of them have fire magic as she does. 

The letter read and memorized, Rae tosses it into her brazier, calling the fire to life from smoldering coals. The flames devour the letter from her family and she stares into the flame, trying to See. 

Images take shape in the flame, formed of the red-orange tongues. A woman and two men standing aboard a ship floating across the flames. There are no details or color, only the shapes, but she recognizes Dany and Eggy and Vis. 

She reaches out a hand, twirls it at the wrist. The images twist with the motion, reforming to a tall woman with long hair standing with a man in what appears to be a palace. Rae doesn’t know the man but she knows her mother, Elia Martell. 

It would take several drops of her blood to bring life to the images in her fire. It is magic she learned on the streets of Pentos, given to the fire dancers and fortune tellers by a sun god from long ago Valyria and hidden from the Red Priests who seek to destroy any worship of fire that is not to the Lord of Light. 

But they cannot kill life and that is what fire of the sun is. It is not the death of sacrifices as they preach. Fire is revitalization and warmth. It allows plants to grow and the dying to live. It keeps the death of frost and cold at bay and gives comfort and hope as nothing else can. 

“Healer Talisa?”

Rae blinks from her reverie, releasing the magic of the flame and turning to the speaker. 

Healer Alys stands at her side, frowning down at her. The Healer is an old woman, the veteran of many campaigns. When Rae first arrived, Healer Alys took her under her wing and introduced her to the Westerosi methods of healing that Rae did not know. In turn, Rae shared all she knew from her Volantene teacher. 

“Yes, Healer Alys?” she asks.

“We are t’ go over the supplies,” Healer Alys answers. “Come along.”

Rae stands quickly and follows the older woman to the Healers’ tent. Inside, a gaggle of women in the blue dresses of Healers stand near the far end. Off the battlefield they had removed the strange harnesses with the symbol of the Seven hung like banners above their heads.

They all turn to greet Haeler Alys who leads them and Rae whom they welcomed with open arms upon her arrival. 

Healer Alys settles on a chair at the head of the table. “Now,” she says, firm voice calling the meeting to order, “what do we need most?”

Rae sots halfway down the table, taking notes as her fellow Healers talk. Soon, they all agree that their direst of needs is milk of the poppy, the powerful anesthetic that allows medical treatment to be as painless as possible. Silk is needed, too, for the sewing of wounds, and willowbark and fennel root to reduce fevers. 

“And who will bring our list to His Grace?” Healer Jeyne asks.

Healer Alys looks down the table. “Healer Talisa.”

Rae blinks, looking up from her list. “Yes, Healer Alys?”

Healer Alys studies her with dark brown eyes in a face worn with crags. “You will bring our list of needed supplies to His Grace.”

Rae forces herself to swallow. “Are you sure? I am not of Westeros. He might be more inclined to listen to -”

“I have made my decision,” Healer Alys quells her protests. “Take our list to him now, while it is still fresh in your mind.”

Rae glances down at her little notebook. She had intended to give the list to Healer Alys after this meeting. Instead, she ties her notebook closed and stuffs her pen into her pocket, hurrying from the Healers’ tent. 

Robb Stark is easy to find. He holds Council in his tent at the center of camp. She stops just outside, listening, nervously fiddling with her notebook. She can hear Robb’s voice questioning a man but she dare not attempt to peek lest he suspect her a spy.

Still, she can hear a little.

“She admired your spirit, Your Grace,” a strange man’s voice says.

Robb answers, voice too low. The strange man answers, “She, uh…”

Robb’s voice, somehow soft and loud, encourages the stranger. “If every man were held accountable for the actions of every distant relative, Ser Alton, we’d all hang.”

Rae’s insides twist. She dearly hopes Robb believes that. It is the only way he will forgive her for her grandfather’s crimes. 

The strange man answers but Rae does not hear. 

“You’ve acted with honor. I thank you for it. Lord Karstark, see that Ser Alton’s pen is clean, and give him a hot supper.”

Compassion and honor. Rae adores Robb for it but she worries, too. The Northmen are fueled by hate and vengeance. Robb’s compassion of perceived enemies could easily be misconstrued as weakness and lack of desire to avenge his father. 

“Too many prisoners,” a deep voice rumbles. Rae almost bares her teeth in a catlike hiss. She does not like Lord Bolton. He speaks of flaying innocent men alive in a voice like warm honey. She does not like him and she does not trust him. 

“That will be all,” Robb says and the Council files past her, escorting a man in Lannister armor. She watches them pass beneath lowered lashes, waiting until the last is well and away. 

Sure that Robb is alone, Rae tucks her notebook away and enters the tent. But Robb is not alone. Lord Bolton stands before him. Rae lifts her head, forcing herself to ignore the distasteful man. “Your Grace,” she says, trying to wipe her hands clean as best she can on a blood stained cloth, “a moment of your time?”

Lord Bolton steps back, eyeing her. Robb nods to him and he leaves, black cloak billowing around him, making a spectre of his pale form. 

“We Healers have been treating your wounded men,” Rae says, ignoring the chill racing down her back at Bolton’s cold eyes.

Robb’s expression darkens. “And my enemies, as some of my bannermen are fond of mentioning.”

Rae’s eyes narrow. “They are not my enemies,” she snaps.  _ And best give kindness to those who may one day face my sister. _

Robb’s blue eyes flick away as if unable to meet her anger. “That’s what I tell my bannermen.”

So he has defended her? Rae lifts her head, a vague sense of triumph in her heart. She takes out her notebook, preparing to give him her list. “We Healers have already run through the supplies we brought,” she says. “Some are easily replaced - egg yolks, turpentine, oil of roses…”

“But some are not,” Robb guesses. 

Rae takes a deep breath, opening her little notebook. “We need silk for stitching, fennel root for fever, willowbark,” she reads from her list. She glances up and her voice catches. 

While she spoke, Robb had moved around from his desk, approaching her, expression unreadable. He doesn’t move his gaze from her face and she has to force herself not to blush.

“Mostly, we need milk of the poppy,” she continues, meeting his eyes. “You saw what it’s like to amputate a foot without any and there will be more limbs lost before this war is over.”

He stands so close now she can smell the leather of his armor and see the flecks of gray in his blue eyes.

“If you need help finding these -”

“I know where to find them,” Rae says quickly then looks away, flushing; she has blushed more readily in the months she has been in The North than all her time in Essos. If only it were an act. Her life would be made easier if her blushing and fluttering like a besotted maiden were an act. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t interrupt you.”

Robb smiles at her, bemused. “Continue, my Lady.”

Rae swallows. The man shouldn’t be this charming. “You’re riding to the Crag to negotiate a surrender?”

Robb nods. “Yes.”

“The Crag will have a Maester and he will have what we need.”

“I expect he will.”

Rae fingers the pages of her notebook. “If I could give you a list -”

“Come with me to the Crag.”

Rae stares. He cannot - is the man daft? Already he skirts the line of propriety for a man betrothed to another. “I don’t think that will be-”

“Let the Maester show you his stores,” Robb reasons. “I want the wounded men to be well treated. All the wounded men.”

He doesn’t give her a chance to argue. He steps around her, leaving her standing in his Council tent alone, staring after him, heart suddenly too loud in her ears. 

Once, when she was younger, she caught her uncle-brother staring after a young woman with much the same look as Robb Stark just gave her. When she asked who the woman was, Vis huffed, face red, and told her the woman was no one. But Rae didn’t believe him so she asked her Spear-Mother and her Spear-Mother laughed and said Vis was infatuated but that it would pass soon enough. 

Standing in Robb Stark’s Council tent, Rae hopes his infatuation will leave him soon. An unrequited love for her part she can ignore. If his affection for her grows beyond friendship - well, Rae is only a woman and she does not know if she has the strength to deny him.


	5. Chapter 5

Wind whips across the Riverlands, bringing with it the scent of rain and wet earth. Rae pulls her cloak tighter, wishing she had brought gloves. Westeros is far colder than Pentos, or Qarth which is at the center of a desert, or even the Great Grass Sea of the Dothraki. She remembers longingly the humid heat that caused sweat to trickle down her back and face as she rode through the Great Grass Sea.

Beside her, the packhorse and cart she brought trundles over the rough track. There is nothing inside the cart beyond her own meager belongings to better accommodate the supplies from the Crag’s maester. Her own meager belongings save the packet of moon tea pressed into her hand by young Healer Olya with a wicked wink.

Rae had rolled her eyes at the young woman’s cheek but tucked the tea inside her pocket. Better safe than wasteful.

Ahead, Robb Stark leads their train through the woods astride his great gray destrier. The setting sun lends fire to his hair and Rae can’t help but watch. He seems a woodland king, like one of the First Men her Wolf-Mother tells stories about. She wonders if that is from whom he draws strength now, from those long ago Starks who drove away the Long Night and led The North to victory and prosperity. 

Around her, the small force of Northmen and Rivermen follow their King in the North to take the Crag. It is a small castle, from what she understands, and much run down, House Westerling who holds it without the funds to maintain the keep. Still, the Crag is supposedly a strategic hold, sitting on the coast of the Sunset Sea, north of Casterly Rock and well positioned to receive support from farther up the coast.

The men expect an easy victory, their numbers - only a fraction of Robb’s army - far outnumbering the Crag’s defenders. Rae hopes the victory will have minimal casualties for only two Healers came besides herself. 

* * *

The taking of the Crag begins at daybreak and Rae is relieved that the soldiers are right, the battle is easily won. Many Cragmen die at the hands of the Northmen and Rivermen but there are very few injuries that require a Healer's attention. 

Rae walks amongst the wounded, helping to bandage and apply medicines where they are needed. The Maester of the Crag did have all they needed, as she predicted, so what they do not need to tend to their wounded, Rae helps her fellow Healers package and stow in boxes to be taken back to the rest of the army.

“Healer Talisa!”

Rae frowns. Why is it someone is always calling for her when she is busy? “Yes?” she asks, turning to the messenger. 

It’s the Frey boy, the one who is Robb’s squire. Olyvar, she thinks his name is. “His Grace is wounded and askin’ for you,” Olyvar says without preamble. 

Rae jumps to her feet, fear sparking like lightning through her body. “You there,” she barks at an uninjured Riverman, “grab my crate.” She doesn’t wait for the Riverman to protest. She turns back to Olyvar. “Take me to him.”

Robb lays in a bed in the Crag’s keep, blood staining his shoulder scarlett. A pretty girl, no more than fifteen, sits at his bedside, tending to his wound. Rae’s eyes narrow with a surge of jealousy. 

“You may go,” she says briskly, stepping up beside the bed. 

The girl jumps like a startled rabbit. 

“And who are you, to order us about?” demands a shrill woman’s voice.

Grey Wind, Robb’s great direwolf, lifts his head from where he lays beside Robb’s bed. The wolf’s muzzle is bloody and a low growl rumbles from his chest at the woman sitting in the corner watching Robb and the girl with hard brown eyes. 

Both strangers are dressed well and the woman has the air of self importance only a noble can achieve. Rae sneers. “I am the Healer. Your presence is not necessary here.” When neither move, her eyes narrow. “Leave,” she orders with a hiss. “ _Now._ ”

The Riverman appears at the door with her crate and, seeing Rae’s glare, escorts the two women from the room.

“Who were they?” Rae asks Olyvar, taking the girl’s seat and examining Robb’s wound. At the very least the girl did a sufficient job of cleaning away the blood. The injury appears to be from an arrow, easy enough to mend and, with a poultice to ward off infection, he should be healed in no time.

Grey Wind huffs at the hem of her skirts and seems reassured by her scent. He lays his head back on his paws and closes his golden eyes, for all the world seeming to go to sleep.

“Jeyne Westerling, and her mother, Lady Sybell.”

“And you left them alone with your King?” Rae demands. “It would have been easy to kill him in his sick bed. None are to be left alone with His Grace until he can defend himself, am I understood?”

Olyvar flushes. “Y-yes, Healer Talisa.”

“Go, stand by the door. I may need you to run for supplies.”

The boy hastens to obey and Rae begins her work, retrieving a needle and silk thread from her crate to stitch up the wound. After she has pressed the poultice over her stitching she wraps the shoulder in clean linen. Only as she is leaning across him to tie the linen off does Robb wake. 

He blinks up at her, blue eyes bleary. “I thought I dreamed you,” he whispers, voice rough. “I thought I dreamed you came as a dragon to ward off death.”

Rae freezes. “What makes you say I am a dragon?” she asks carefully, trying to ignore her shaking hands. 

Robb ignores her question. He stares at her, transfixed. Rae knows she should pull away, that she should remove herself from temptation. He is the King in the North and she is lying to him. Sooner or later she will have to leave or he will discover her secret. Worse, should he learn her true name, he will think this all a ploy, though to what end she cannot fathom. 

A strand of black hair falls across his face. Gently he reaches with his good arm, closing his thumb and forefinger on the errant lock. His blue eyes bore into hers and her heart thuds in her chest. Surely he can see the violet of her eyes usually hidden by shadows.

“Your Grace,” Olyvar appears at her side, hovering, “it is good to see you awake.” 

His voice jars Rae free from the hold of Robb’s eyes and she pulls away, breathing deep to steady her racing heart. “You’re all stitched up, Your Grace,” she says. “Olyvar, remember what I said: no one is to be left alone with His Grace, especially the Westerlings.”

Her instructions given, Rae sweeps from Robb’s room, head held high. A Northman stands guard in the hall and she stops to deliver her same instructions: none are to be left alone with the King. 

Still, Rae knows she will return in the night to sit at his bedside. She does not trust the scheming look in Lady Sybell’s eyes or the way she watched Robb with her pretty daughter. 


	6. Chapter 6

“I thought I told you to leave and not come back,” Rae says cooly as she steps into the room. Olyvar stands by the door but young, pretty Jeyne Westerling sits at Robb’s bedside. 

Again, the girl jumps like a startled rabbit and Rae suppresses the urge to to roll her eyes. The child must be scared of her own shadow with the way she jumps. 

“I - I -” the girl stammers.

Rae takes pity on her. “His Grace will have no more need of your services for the duration of his stay, Lady Jeyne,” she says. 

The girl knows a dismissal when she hears it. She scurries from the room, blushing furiously. Rae watches her go with an expression of disinterest that masks irritation and a slight twinge of jealousy.

“You didn’t have to chase the poor girl off,” Robb scolds with a smile.

Rae turns to him. He sits propped against the headboard, looking far better than he did the day before. Color has returned to his cheeks and the wound in his chest does not seem to be causing him any pain. 

“Begging your pardon, Your Grace,” she says, settling onto the vacated stool, “but I disagree.”

Carefully, she begins to unwind the bandages. The sharp scent of herbs fills the room as she pulls the linen back to examine her stitching.

“Oh?” Robb asks. “Why is that, my Lady?”

Rae glances quickly at his face to see his blue eyes sparkle with mirth. She presses her lips together; it really is no laughing matter. “How easy would it be for a pretty young girl like that to tempt any man into her bed?”

“You think me so dishonourable?”

“I think you human, Your Grace, for all your honor.” The stitching looks clean and the wound is healing well. She rewraps his shoulder, adding, “And it need not even actually happen. She can always claim you brought her into your bed and what will you look like if you deny her?”

“Is that why you won’t let anyone be alone with me? My dear Lady Talisa, are you jealous?”

“ _You,_ ” she snaps, jerking the knot of his bandages with unnecessary force, “are promised to another, or did you forget?”

Robb stiffens beneath her hand. For a moment, Rae thinks she might have hurt him. Then, “No,” Robb says quietly, “I did not forget.”

An awkward silence fills the small room. Not even Olyvar makes a sound. Rae wants to take it back, restore his good humor with flirtatious teasing, but she cannot. Instead, she swallows. “Is she beautiful?”

Robb looks away, staring at the foot of his bed. “I’ve never met her.”

“What’s her name?”

Robb shrugs with his good shoulder. “Frey, I suppose. I don’t know her first name.”

Rae bites her lip, taking her hands from Robb’s bare chest to fiddle with the cloth in her lap. “I’m sure you’ll be very happy.”

Behind her, the door clicks. She looks around. Contrary to her orders, Olyvar has left the room, closing the door behind him and leaving Rae alone with the King in the North. Robb snorts, following her gaze. “I guess he didn’t want to hear us discussing his sister.”

Rae laughs. “I suppose not. Especially one you’re marrying for a bridge.”

“An important bridge” Robb corrects.

“Ah, yes, an important bridge.”

Robb sighs, head thumping back against the headboard. “It was important before they killed my father,” he explains without prompting. “I still thought I could march south and rescue him in time, but only if I crossed that bridge.”

Rae’s ears prick at the mention of Eddard Stark. Ever since coming to this foregin country she has tried her best to learn more of her Wolf-Mother’s brother. “Many Northmen loved your father,” she says carefully. “They always say how honored they are to avenge him and fight for his son.”

“He was the best man I ever met,” Robb rumbles. “Children always say that about their fathers, I know, but -”

“No,” Rae corrects quietly, remembering her grandfather and the countless nights Viserys woke screaming, “children do not always think the best of their fathers.”

Robb studies her, searching her face. Rae shoves her hair back, lifting her head and forcing a smile. Viserys’ nightmares are his own and she will not betray him. 

“He once told me that being a lord is like being a father,” Robb continues, “except you have thousands of children and you worry about all of them. He told me he woke with fear in the morning and went to bed with fear in the night, worrying for them. I didn't believe him. I asked him, "How can a man be brave if he's afraid?" "That is the only time a man can be brave," he told me.”

Robb smiles at the memory and Rae smiles back. “I wish I could have met him,” she says wistfully. 

“He would have liked you.”

Rae blushes. If the Young Wolf knew - she feels the truth on her tongue and she swallows it back. She will not tell him, cannot tell him. 

“And you?” she asks instead. “Do you consider everyone under your care your children?”

“I try.” Shadows age his face and Rae wonders what scars this war will leave on his soul - or will the war take it entirely?

“So you’re not fighting this war to have songs written about your triumphs?” she tries to tease but it falls flat in the small stone room, far removed from the horrors of war. 

Robb laughs, a hollow sound. “You think I’m fighting so they’ll sing songs about me?” He shakes his head. “No. I want to go home,” he confesses. “I want all the men following me to go home.”

Rae tilts her head. His longing for home calls to her in ways nothing about this foreign land has. It echoes the longing in her heart for a place that is her own, where her family can be safe. 

“Then go home,” she says, fighting away her bitterness. Robb Stark has a home. No matter how far from that home he may stray, he still has a home. He has Winterfell where his ancestors dwell and thick stone walls that keep away the demons. 

“We can't,” Robb snarls, fists clenching in his bedclothes. “So long as the Lannisters live we will never be safe. And I believe in justice. The Lannisters owe us justice.”

A flash of fire sears through Rae’s heart. _Yes,_ something hisses in her head, _the Lannisters owe us justice._

A knock echoes from the door. Olyvar pokes his head in. “Lord Bolton to see you, Your Grace.”

Rae starts to her feet but Robb’s hand grabs her, holding her in place. “Come in,” he calls.

Lord Bolton steps inside, black cloak removed for once. Rae licks her lips nervously. His cold, flat, black eyes sweep over the room. “If I might have a word, Your Grace.”

Robb nods. “Of course.”

Behind Lord Bolton, Olyvar takes his place just inside the door, hands folded behind his back. Lord Bolton glances over his shoulder then back at Rae. “If I might have a word _alone,_ Your Grace?”

Robb squeezes Rae’s hand. “Lady Talisa has my full confidence,” he says, “as does Olyvar. Please, speak freely, my Lord.”

Something flickers in Lord Bolton’s eyes but nothing crosses his face. He holds up a small scroll, extingind it for Robb to take. “We received a raven, Your Grace, from Winterfell. Theon Greyjoy holds the castle in your name but they are besieged by Ironborn who have declared war on The North.”

What color Robb regained drains from his face. "And my brothers?" He asks, taking the message with his uninjured hand.

"Missing, Your Grace. Lord Theon has searched high and low for them but they cannot be found. He fears they were stolen by Ironborn before he could retake Winterfell."

Robb squeezes Rae's hand almost painfully as his blue eyes rove over the curled parchment in his other hand. She grits her teeth and remains silent, hoping her skirts and the bedsheets hide Robb's reaction. A king must never show fear or anger lest he be thought weak.

Still, a part of her not consumes with concern for Robb is surprised. Bets in camp are for Theon to join the Ironborn against Robb, not remain loyal to The North and fight his own kin. There were five to one odds against. The gamblers amongst the soldiers will be delighted to collect their winnings once word reaches them.

"My bastard is only a few days' ride at the Dreadfort, Your Grace. He can relieve the Ironborn siege and shore up Winterfell's defenses."

"My brothers-" Robb says tightly.

"My bastard will join the search," Lord Bolton promises. 

"I have to go to Winterfell. I'll find them myself."

Rae bites her lip to keep from speaking. It's not her place, but Robb is fighting a war. To turn back now will give up land to the Lannisters. He is so close to pushing them back.

"With all do respect, Your Grace," Lord Bolton says in his honey voice, "but you cannot. You have the Lannisters on the run. To return to Winterfell now would be a grave mistake."

Rae blinks, surprised. She never thought to hear her own thoughts from Lord Bolton's lips. She doesn't trust him but his advice is sound.

Robb seems to hear the truth in his words, too. He sighs. "Send your bastard, then. But," he meets Lord Bolton's gaze with blue steel, "any Ironborn who surrender will be allowed to return safely to their homes."

"Mercy is a virtue, Your Grace, but too much -"

"I will not kill if I do not have to," Robb snaps.

Lord Bolton bows. "As you say, Your Grace."

Rae watches him leave and Olyvar follows, leaving her and Robb alone again, his hand still holding hers.


	7. Chapter 7

“Well,” Rae says, “I had best leave you to your rest.” She tries to stand but again Robb’s grip on her hand keeps her in her seat. 

“When will I be well enough to ride?” he asks.

“Your Grace, I know it is not my place, but it would be unwise to ride for Winterfell when you have the Lions on the run.”

Robb frowns at her. “And what does a highborn girl from a distant land know of war?”

Rae’s mind spins. She should not have spoken. She is supposed to be a Volantene noblewoman turned Healer. Noblewomen are not supposed to know of war. They are not supposed to have her teachers: Dornish soldiers and mighty generals, a Princess from a warrior kingdom, a Wolf shieldmaiden, and as many books on stratagem and ruling as could be found.

Robb’s grip on her arm is almost unbearably tight. “You’re hurting me,” she says, trying to pull free.

“Tell me how you know of war,” he orders.

Rae bares her teeth. Fine. He is asking for this lie so she will give it to him. “My father was a general,” she spits, “a great warrior and hero by my people’s standards. He taught me well.”

Robb’s grip loosens. She jerks free. A red mark like a hand encircles her wrist. She rubs it, knowing it will soon bruise. _Next time he will lose his hand._

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean - are you hurt?’

Rae lifts her gaze, expression stony. She may like him a great deal but should he ever try something like that again, she will make him hurt. “If that is all, Your Grace,” she says with Winter’s chill. She moves to stand and again Robb stops her, though this time with words. 

“Please,” he asks, “stay.”

Rae considers him. “You will be fit to ride tomorrow, Your Grace. I am not sure what more I can do for you.”

“All the same, I would like your company.”

She resettles on the stool for he is a king and she cannot deny him, but she keeps her hands firmly in her lap and edges the stool slightly back. Robb sees her pull away and grimaces. 

“Tell me, please,” he says softly, this time a question, “how did a noblewoman come to be a Healer?”

Rae frowns. That is a story she does not lightly share, the most terrifying moment of her life, but she has already told him so many lies he deserves a truth from her, even if it is slightly altered, placing her family in an unnamed city rather than Pentos. “That is a long story, Your Grace.”

Robb smiles, gesturing to his bed. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Rae reaches for the pitcher of wine on the side table. The sleeve of her dress slips, showing the red mark on her wrist, and Robb grimaces. Rae ignores his expression; let him feel his guilt as is only right. She pours two cups of wine and hands him one, taking a sip from the other. 

“When I was younger,” she begins, “thirteen or so, my parents and older brother went to a great feast, leaving me alone to watch my younger brother and sister. Feasts can go on for many days, you see, and by that time Dany and Eggy had already been banned from ever going to another.”

“Because they threw food at a prince,” Robb remembers.

Rae smiles. “Yes, because they threw food at a prince. So, though I was of an age to go, I volunteered to stay behind and watch them. I thought it would be a few days of escaping my lessons and doing as I wanted. I foolishly forgot how much trouble they could get into without constant watching.” 

She takes another sip of her wine, considering how best to tell this next part. She was only there for part of it and Dany was the one who knew it all best. “It was the second day our parents were gone,” she says. “It was the height of summer and the hottest day of the year. There was a river near our home, clear and cool, and many of the children went there to swim and play, Dany and Eggy, too.”

Robb’s face darkens but he doesn’t speak. Rae waits a moment, watching him, half lost in the memory of that long ago day when she and her sister-aunt and baby brother ventured to the secluded beach near their home in Pentos. He nods, asking her to continue as he takes a sip of his wine. 

“I didn’t see it happen,” Rae says finally, staring into her cup. The wine shines red then gold beneath the candlelight. “I was busy. I wasn’t paying attention and Dany and Eggy have always been such good swimmers, Eggy especially. I never feared them being near water. But then Dany began to scream.”

Her hand clenches reflexively on her wine cup at the memory of icy, heart-stopping fear. Out of the corner of her eye she catches Robb making an abortive motion, as if he thought to hold her hand. Her nearest hand bears the mark of his earlier hold and he stops. 

Rae lifts her head, forcing herself to go on, forcing away the memory of that fear. “Eggy was floating facedown in the water. We couldn’t revive him. Dany was screaming and crying and I didn’t know what to do. Then, a slave pushed me away.” She takes another sip of her wine. “You have to understand, for a slave to touch a highborn girl without permission, let alone push her, means death, painful, horrible death. But I saw this slave was tattooed with the Healer’s spiral here,” she touches her left cheek just below her eye. “And then this Healer slave began pushing on my baby brother’s chest. It was a heartbeat and soon Eggy was coughing water, alive and breathing.”

Rae remembers the Healer’s face, her kind eyes. Slaves are rare in Pentos, but Rae thanks the gods every day that Healer Talisa was there when Eggy swallowed half the sea. “I brought her back with me to our house. She taught me everything she knew and lived with us until she died, a freed woman.”

“And that’s how you learned how to heal?”

Rae nods. “I made myself a promise that day: never again would I be helpless to save a life.”

“But why did you come here?” Robb asks, shifting in his bed. “Why did you come to Westeros? I’m sure there are plenty of people to heal in Essos.”

 _That_ is a complicated question with an even more complicated answer. The truth, of course, is her family. After Dany’s Dothraki warlord husband died, after she stepped from the fire with three dragons, after what was left of the khalasar stumbled through the desert and were finally, _finally_ welcomed in Qarth, they all agreed that Elia was right: the allies they need to retake the Iron Throne are in Westeros, not Essos. 

Lyanna sent a message to her wife who had left them in Vaes Dothrak to gain supporters in Dorne. Elia’s response spoke of war brewing in the Seven Kingdoms, of the need for better information. Elia’s niece, one of her brother’s bastard daughters, follows the Lannister soldiers as a Septa of the Faith of the Seven. But they needed eyes in The North. Daenerys, Viserys, and Aegon are too Targaryen, blond with pale purple eyes. Lyanna is a Stark and there was too great a chance someone would recognize her. The only who could go and remain undetected is Rae.

_And I’ve fucked that up, haven’t I?_

“I wanted to see the world,” Rae answers. It’s the truth, or part of it, at least. “I’ve been a great many places in Essos, but never Westeros. I heard tell that your Seven Kingdoms are beautiful and different. How could I resist the adventure?”

Robb snorts. “And how are you finding your adventure, my Lady?”

Rae considers. “Different,” she answers truthfully. “Very different from what I imagined. But wonderful.”

Robb meets her eyes on that last, the word coming more as a sigh. Rae freezes under his gaze, like a deer before a wolf. _But I am not a deer._

“I don't want to marry the Frey girl!”

Rae blinks, stunned. “I - I -”

Robb searches her face. Suddenly, he reaches for her, buries his hand in her hair, pulls her close. He stops when they’re inches apart, their breath mingling between them. She surges forward, pressing her mouth to his. 

His hand clenches in her hair and she wraps her arms around his shoulder. Fuck propriety. Let her be reckless for once. 

Fire erupts in her chest, filling her, pouring from his touch til she thinks she’ll combust. _Fuck_. _By the gods he can kiss._

His hands scrabble for the laces of her dress. She pulls back to help. The fabric falls away and Robb hauls her into his bed.


	8. Chapter 8

“Marry me.”

“Hmm?” Rae props her chin on his chest. Robb’s fingers trace loose, looping patterns across her back. She revels in his touch, half asleep in the flickering candlelight made low by the hour. 

“Marry me,” Robb repeats, pressing a kiss to her hair. 

“What?” She sits up, frowning down at him.

Robb Stark is beautiful beneath her, pale like the moon with an auburn crown about his head and ocean blue eyes. 

_ And he is promised to another. _

"Marry me?" He asks a third time, taking her hand and pressing a gentle kiss to her knuckles.

“I want to,” she says quietly. Robb grins, radiant as the sun. She leans down, pressing a long slow kiss to his soft lips. His hands drag up her sides, leaving trails of fire along her skin. When she pulls away he still smiles and her heart cracks. “But, no.”

His smile falls and he surges up. “What do you mean ‘no’?”

“I mean,” Rae says, turning away to sit on the edge of the bed, “that you are promised to another so I will not marry you.”

“But you’ll fuck me?” he asks bitterly.

Rae looks at him sharply. “You think my value as a woman is dependent on my maidenhead?”

“No, of course not! I -”

Rae smiles wickedly and Robb’s eyes narrow. “It’s not right to tease the king.”

Rae leans into him, pressing a quick kiss to his mouth. “Unless you’re the king’s mistress.”

A shadow crosses Robb’s face. “An honorable man does not have a mistress.”

“An honorable man does not have a mistress when he also has a wife,” Rae corrects gently even as her heart aches. “You are not yet married and so are free to take whichever lover you wish.” Rae gives him a sidelong look. “Do you wish to be my lover?”

Robb rumbles wordlessly and pulls her back into the bed.

* * *

Rae fastens the ties of her dress, casting a glance over her shoulder to Robb’s sleeping form. He snores and turns over. Rae smiles, stepping across the room to the door. A Northman and a Riverman stand guard in the corridor. 

“He’s not to be disturbed,” she says before sweeping away. The Crag is silent at dawn and she makes her way through the ancient castle. Soldiers stand at their posts but do not impede her passing and mist swirls at her feet when she crosses the field outside the stone walls.

The sun rises in the east, pink-golden light piercing the sky. She closes her eyes, basking in the warmth. There is magic in the sun and fire is its heart. 

Rae takes that warmth into her own heart, turning her face up. Slowly, carefully, she raises her hands. Hidden from the world by trees and rock, she begins to dance, listening to music only she can hear.

With every pass of her hands the heat grows in her palms until flames twine through her fingers. From the flames she calls strength, protection, and peace. 

She needs the strength of the noonday summer sun to carry the burden of her love. She needs the protection of a winter campfire to guard her heart. She needs the peace of a Spring sunrise to heal the cracks when it is time to let go.

She takes it all into herself, hoping the ancient Valyrian sun god whose magic she borrows will grant her mercy. With a final slow spin she raises her hands above her head. The fire weaving through her fingers reaches up, returning to the sun, leaving her alone in the wooded clearing.

Rae stays in the forest for a time after, watching the sun rise above the horizon and feeling the magic fade.

A shout echoes from the camp surrounding the Crag and she sighs. This part of The North's forces intends to depart today, leaving only a small garrison behind to guard Cragsport. If she means to be helpful she will need to find the other Healers.

She tucks her hands into her pockets to ward off the morning chill and her fingers close on a small packet. She pulls it out and almost laughs. She had forgotten Healer Olya's moon tea.

Rae brews the tea over an open campfire while the other two Healers prepare breakfast. Thankfully, moon tea tastes very much like every other tea so neither are suspicious. It also helps that both are well beyond their child bearing years.

Tea drunk and breakfast eaten, she helps the Healers load their crates of supplies into the carts given by the quartermaster. The most important supplies, however, are placed carefully into her own cart with her Dothraki warhorse in the tracers. Virzeth has not necessarily been happy at being a carthorse and swishes his tail irritably while she double checks the harness, but he doesn't try to bite her when she offers him an apple which is an improvement.

The trek back to the rest of the army will take three days. Rae clambers into her cart and takes up the reins while letting the rest march ahead. The army well on its way, she takes a place at the rear with the other wagons.

She is alone with her thoughts for the rest of the day, and the days after that, until they finally rejoin the rest of the army at Riverrun, the seat of House Tully who rules the Riverlands. 

Rae ignores the twinge of disappointment that Robb has not sought her out. Fucking Robb Stark is not her purpose here. She is not here to seduce him or become romantically entangled. She is here to watch and learn, that is all.

Healer Olya finds her as she is unloading her wagon. “So, Healer Talisa,” she says with a smile, taking one of the crates, “how was the Crag?”

Rae looks at her sharply. Healer Olya is the youngest of their group besides Rae at twenty-five. She is pretty and bright eyed, with a wicked smile and friendly disposition. She also overhears the best gossip in the entire camp. Rae doubts Northern spies know as much.

“It was uneventful,” Rae answers, stacking her crate. 

“Of course.” Healer Olya follows Rae back to her cart, taking care to give Virzeth a wide berth; the rune burned into his halter may conceal that he is a warhorse, but nothing can disguise his vicious nature. “I heard something interesting from the soldiers who came back.”

“What did you hear?”

“I heard that Lady Westerling of the Crag conspired to have her daughter seduce King Stark but a Healer chased them off.”

Rae frowns. That would explain Lady Jeyne Westerling’s return to Robb’s room. "She did seem interested," Rae says idly. "What else did you hear?"

"That the same Healer ordered guards posted at His Grace's door then spent every night there - to ensure His Grace's continued recovery."

Rae flushes. "Of course." Quickly she changes the subject. "Tell me what I missed while I was away."

Olya perks up. "Oh, that is interesting," she says. "The special prisoner was set free."

Rae almost drops her basket of linen. " _ What? _ "

She knows the special prisoner: Ser Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer. Were it not for her Spear-Mother's stories and Viserys' nightmares she might think to avenge her grandfather on his murderer. Instead, she watched the Kingslayer from the shadows, ignoring the impulse to ask him  _ why _ . 

"Word is," Olya continues, "it was Lady Stark's doing, the King's mother, and she sent her lady knight with him. She's been under guard since this morning at the very least."

"Does anyone know why she did it?"

Olya blinks at her. "Isn't it obvious?"

Rae shakes her head and a lock of black her falls in her face. She quickly shoves it back.

"Her two youngest son's are missing, or so Lord Theon sent word from Winterfell, and the Lannisters still have her two daughters. She probably made a deal with him: his freedom for her daughters."

"But that's stupid," Rae protests. "How can she expect to hold him to that promise when he is safe at home?"

"A Lannister always pays his debts," Olya answers with the air of proverb and a shrug.

Rae blinks at her. "I don't know what that means."

Olya frowns. "No, I suppose you wouldn't." She sighs. “It means that every promise a Lannister makes or debt he has, he keeps, be it bargain, favor, or revenge. It’s their unofficial Words.”

A chill runs down Rae’s spine but she calls up the fire in her heart to ward off the fear. The Lannisters owe her a debt, too, and she will see it repaid.

Olya helps her unload the rest of the cart, still chattering about the doings in the camp. She also mentions several soldiers willing to pay for mending and the like because the Healers’ stitching holds better than the washerwomen’s. Rae isn’t sure what she’d purchase with the few copper dragons she’d get for the work but she stores the knowledge away. 

Healer Marys comes for Olya to start her shift in the medical tents, nodding to Rae before leaving Rae alone again. Soon Rae will join them in the Healers’ tent but for now she repitches her own tent and sets up her brazier and lays out her bedroll. 

The side of her tent is painted with the Mark of the Seven like all the Healers’ tents but next to it is the Valyrian Healer’s spiral. Virzeth she tethers to a stake near the opening next to her cart. It’s a far cry from the Pentoshi manse where she grew up but it’s not terrible. 

From the cart she pulls one of the few luxuries she brought from Essos: a writing desk. Inside are rolls off parchment, ink, and pens. In careful High Valyrian, using her family’s cypher, she begins to write:  _ Dearest Brother _ \- then she stops, frowning. What should she say?

With a twinge of guilt, Rae remembers she has not been doing her duty as the Targaryen spy, so she puts pen to paper:

_ My time in Westers is going well. I’ve made several friends. We are traveling South but we do not intend to stay. Once our business is done I think my new friends and I will return North. They really have no interest in the southron part of the country. I hope to hear from you soon. _

Aegon is the cleverest of her siblings. He will understand her meaning.

Messengers leave the camp every day and she has the funds to pay for her message to be sent directly to Illyrio Mopatis in Pentos who will know where her family is.

Rae studies the letter. There is no reason to tell her family about her recent...romance. Not that there’s anything to tell, she thinks furiously, making her way through the camp. She refused marriage then left his bed before he woke. She hasn't spoken to him for three days. More like as not, he’ll not want anything to do with her going forward.

That thought is refuted when a messenger appears in the Healers’ tents asking for her. Her hands are mercifully clean but her nose wrinkles at the pungent scent of herbs clinging to her hair and skin as she stands. 

“You are Healer Talisa?” the boy asks, peering into her face with dark brown eyes. 

“Yes?”

“His Grace is asking for you.”

Rae’s stomach turns but she sets aside her work and follows the boy to Robb’s tent.

The Young Wolf sits at the table in his tent, the lamps and braziers casting a flickering, golden light. Again Rae is struck by how beautiful Robb Stark is. 

She steps into the tent, feeling invasive. “You asked for me, Your Grace?”

Robb blinks, looking up. His expression remains carefully blank but - she is probably seeing only what she wants but she thinks his eyes brighten when he sees her. “Yes,” he says, “I did.”

“How may I be of service?”

“Come inside,” he says instead of answering, “and close the tent behind you.”

Butterflies flutter to life in her stomach but she obeys, tying the tent flap closed. When she turns back, Robb is still sitting at his table with a pitcher of wine and two cups. He motions to them. “Please, join me.”

Rae smiles. “A request. How strange for a king.”

“I am not a king to make demands.”

Rae settles on the offered seat. “Why not?” she asks, fingering her cup. “You have every right.”

“That’s not the kind of king I want to be.”

Rae takes a sip of her wine. “Good.” She studies him. Shadows smudge the skin under his eyes and his shoulders seem to carry the weight of the world. “How are you?”

Robb scowls. “How am I?” he snarls. “I’ve had to arrest my mother. The Lannisters have my sisters and my two brothers are missing. The only good news I’ve had in weeks is Theon retaking Winterfell from the Ironborn.”

“I never met Theon but I am glad you have such a loyal friend.”

Robb nods. “He is a good man. But I don’t want to talk of the war tonight.”

“Then what would you like to talk about, Your Grace?”

“Robb,” he corrects, leaning toward her. “Please call me Robb.”

Rae hides a smile behind her cup, inordinately pleased. “What would you like to talk about, _Robb_?”

A smile blooms across Robb’s face at his name on her lips. “Well,” he says, voice dipping low and soft; he reaches for her, fingers caressing the bare skin of her arm, “I’m not sure what I had in mind requires much talking.”

Rae twists her hand so his fingers curl in her palm. Carefully, she sets her cup aside and stands. He watches her and Rae feels a sudden, new thrill of power as she steps forward. His free hand goes to her waist and Rae grins. Carefully, she settles on Robb’s lap.

Their breath mingles and Robb look up at her with barely concealed wonder. 

“Is this what you had in mind, Robb?” she whispers, a finger tracing up his jaw to twine through his auburn curls. 

“Yes,” he breathes and surges up, pressing against her, and fire lights in her soul. 


	9. Chapter 9

The sight of Harrenhal makes her skin crawl. It’s a massive, imposing castle but she knows its history. Aegon the Conqueror flew his great dragon Meraxes above the weapons of the defenders and burned all who lived inside. Ghost stories surround the ancient castle. Her Wolf-Mother told chilling tales of the burned specters of Lord Harren and his sons still wandering the halls. 

Rae can feel the ghosts' eyes on her as she passes through the gate. The stench of rotting flesh and dead things reaches her and she gags, quickly covering her mouth and nose.

Dead men line the courtyard, laid on their backs, bloated and grotesque. The buzz of flies fills the air.

"Two hundred Northmen slaughtered like sheep," Lord Karstark growls, his deep voice carrying across the empty space.

Rae turns. Robb, Lord Karstark, and Lord Bolton survey the massacre. Quietly, she dismounts from her cart and leads Virzeth to the side, out of the way and conveniently close to where the King and his advisors walk amongst the dead. 

"The debt will be repaid," Lord Bolton promises.

Rae bares her teeth quickly looking away. She doesn't like Lord Bolton's eyes, their coldness as he looks over the innumerable dead. There is no sorrow or grief in him, only calculation.

“Will it?” Lord Karstark snarls and Rae’s fingers tighten reflexively on Virzeth’s reins. His words are a challenge, one not to be taken lightly. “Our men rot on the ground, not even properly buried, and their murderer goes free.”

“My best hunters are after the Kingslayer,” Lord Bolton says.

“We will find him,” Robb promises.

Rae very much doubts it. She spoke to Lady Brienne of Tarth who was Lady Stark’s swornshield a few times. The tall woman is a fierce warrior. It is very unlikely she will be caught and so unlikely the Northmen will retake Jamie Lannister.

Virzeth tosses his head irritably and Rae rubs her hand along his forehead. Healer Marys appears at her side. “Ye’d best get your things to the main hall and the other Healers,” she says. 

Rae considers. It would be better for her purpose to stay near The North’s generals. “Would you take my cart?” she asks. “I would like to look and see if there are any survivors.”

Healer Marys looks about the courtyard dubiously. “I do not think there are any survivors.”

“All the same, I would like to be sure.”

Healer Marys sighs but does not argue, climbing into the cart while Rae retrieves her personal medical crate from the back. Slinging the strap over her shoulder, Rae steps from behind the cart as it trundles off. 

Alone in the courtyard, she pretends to busy herself with the bodies. In truth, she does not think there are any survivors either, but there are interesting things to be heard when people do not think she is paying attention.

Lady Stark is escorted through the gates, surrounded by armed men, as Rae pretends to examine a row of dead men. Her guards fall back as Robb approaches and Rae edges closer, frowning down at the bodies at her feet. 

Lady Stark stops at a man with a sword through his heart and Robb goes to her. Rae supposes they are speaking of the man - he wears Tully armor - but Rae does not hear. A moment later, Robb calls, “Find her a chamber that will serve as a cell.”

Rae pushes away her pity for Lady Stark. The older woman catches her watching and lifts her head, eyes like blue ice. Rae ducks her head out of respect. When the woman is gone, Rae glances at Robb.

He stands over the dead man but does not look at him, his gaze following where his mother disappeared. Rae can’t find it in her heart to leave him standing alone. “Your Grace,” she calls.

He turns to her approach and smiles. “I thought I told you to call me Robb,” he says when she reaches him.

Rae smiles. “That is only for us,” she whispers, ducking her head. 

“Of course, my Lady.”

Rae glances over her shoulder. “How is your mother?”

Robb’s soft smile darkens. “She freed a Lannister.”

“Yes,” Rae says softly, “I did hear. Do you fear she, too, will run?”

Robb shakes his head. “No, but I fear for her safety.”

“So she is under guard...to protect her?”

“Yes,” Robb sighs. “I fear...I fear that because she has stolen their justice on Ser Jamie Lannister someone will attempt to take it out on her instead.”

"Someone like Lord Karstark?" Rae asks.

"Perhaps."

"But she is the King's mother, your mother," Rae protests. "Surely they would not dare."

Robb shrugs almost helplessly. "It is not a chance I am willing to take."

Rae reaches for Robb, squeezing his hand. Behind her, someone coughs weakly and she turns. A thin man lays half hidden by a toppled column of rubble. He wears the brown robes of a Maester but his chain is missing. 

“Water,” he begs. “Water.”

Rat removes the waterflask from her waist and goes to him, kneeling in the dirt to hold the flask to his lips. As he drinks greedily, she examines him for injury and finds glistening red at his throat. She glances over her shoulder at Robb and shakes her head sadly. This man will not survive.

“What’s your name, friend?” Robb asks.

“Q-Qyburn,” he gasps. His whole body quivers. He chokes and shakes then stiffens. His eyes flutter. He takes one last, desperate breath, and collapses back, eyes open and vacant as the life in him dies. 

Rae sits back on her heels with a sigh. “Have there been any found alive?”

Robb rests a gentle hand on her shoulder. “No, my Lady.”

“And the Lannsiters did this?”

“Aye, their Mountain, Ser Gregor Clegane.”

Rae furiously shoves the stopper back in her waterskin.  _ Fuck the Lannisters. _

“I had best go,” she says, stuffing her anger into a far corner where she can keep it burning until she needs it. 

Robb catches a gentle hand on her arm. His clear blue eyes bore into hers and she leans into his touch. “I will see you later?”

Rae smiles. “Of course.”

Rae finds the other Healers in the long hall off the courtyard. 

“So,” Healer Marys asks, “did you find anyone alive?”

“One,” Rae answers, “but his throat was cut and he died. Have you?"

Healer Marys shakes her head. "Our services will not be needed here. Still, we'll stay with these men when His Grace returns to Riverrun."

Rae blinks, surprised. "We will?"

Healer Marys rolls her eyes. "Not you, obviously. You're His Grace's personal Healer, these days. Ye shan't be strayin' too far from his side."

Rae flushes. "Yes, of course." Nervously, she glances about the hall. "Is there anything I can help with?"

Healer Marys considers for a moment. "Take Healer Jeyne and see if ye can find the Maester's workroom. There might be useful things in there."

Shivers race up Rae’s spine as she and Healer Jeyne make their way through Harrenhal. Sound seems to echo strangely in the barren stone corridors and the torchlight casts eerie shadows along the walls. A creeping, tingling sensation crawls up Rae’s spine and she shivers.

“Here,” Healer Jeyne says, voice an echoing whisper that makes Rae jump. She holds out two slices of freshly baked bread and thick slabs of ham.

Rae’s stomach growls at the sight of food and she takes it gratefully. “You are a goddess among women,” she informs the older woman, taking a bite.

Healer Jeyne shakes her head with a laugh. Rae follows her down the corridor, trusting the Westerosi woman will know where the Maester’s storeroom is. 

A shadow flickers on the edge of her vision, an indistinct shape moving around a corner. Fear prickles across her back. “Healer Jeyne?”

“Yes?”

Rae licks her lips nervously, moving closer to the older woman. “What is that?”

Healer Jeyne peers at the shape. “I don’t -”

A clicking sound reaches their ears. Dread rises in Rae’s stomach. It sounds like metal scraping on stone. Again she remembers the stories of ghosts wandering Harrenhal, of servants disappearing in the night. 

“We should go,” Healer Jeyne says tightly.

Rae nods quickly and turns - and walks straight into something hard. She stumbles back with a startled yelp.

Lord Bolton looks down at her, the firelight flickering in his cold eyes. “Excuse me, Healers,” he says, “but if I might have a word with Healer Talisa?”

Healer Jeyne glaces between the lord and Rae. 

Rae gives her reassuring nod. A ghost may frighten her, but she can handle a man. Looking back at Lord Bolton, she gives him a shallow curtsey. “Of course, my Lord.”

Lord Bolton waits until Healer Jeyne disappears around a corner before turning those cold eyes back to her. “Healer Talisa,” he says in that voice that sends chills racing down Rae’s spine.

“Lord Bolton, how may I be of service?”

"It concerns his Grace," Lord Bolton says, torchlight flickering in his cold eyes. "You two have grown quite close."

Rae presses her tongue to the back of her teeth to keep from speaking. She waits for his question.

"I know we are all grateful for the care and attention you pay his Grace's health."

"You flatter me, my Lord."

Lord Bolton smiles. "I would hope," he says, "that should you...have any concerns regarding his Grace that you would trust me enough to confide in me."

The back of Rae's neck tingles. His words are poison. She can hear the poison hiss with every word. She wants to spit at his feet. Instead, she smiles her blandest smile. "His Grace is blessed to have such a caring Counselor, my Lord."

"I only have The North's best interest at heart."

“As do we all, my Lord. If you will excuse me, I am needed back in the hall.”

Rae refuses to run away from Lord Bolton but she feels his eyes on her back until she turns a corner.


	10. Chapter 10

Rae keeps to her wagon on the return journey from Harrenhal, staying with the supply train at the rear of the column of soldiers. At night she sleeps in her bedroll in the wagon, leaving Virzeth in his harness and tethered slightly away from the others. She tucks Dark Sister into her side during the night and prays she will not need to use it. Lord Bolton scared her. Worse, he noticed her and knows her name. 

Robb finds her the night before they reach Riverrun. He looks haggard, face paler than usual and blue eyes darkened by sorrow.

“May I join you?” he asks, then clambers into her wagon without waiting for an answer. 

Her hand reaches out before she can stop herself, palm cupping his cheek. “What’s wrong?”

Robb leans into her touch, eyes closing as if relieved. “We received word from Winterfell.”

Anxiety turns her stomach. Winterfell, held by Theon Greyjoy, Robb’s foster brother, but besieged by Ironborne from the Iron Islands. Her hand slides from his face to grip his hand. She remembers what she heard at the Craig. “Lord Bolton sent his son to help.”

Robb nods, shoulders slumping in his warm gray cloak. “The Ironborn broke through the walls, killed everyone inside, and set the place to burn before Bolton’s bastard arrived.”

“Oh, Robb.”

A single tear trickles from his eyes and he lets it fall, too tired to hide his sorrow. “Rickon and Bran are nowhere to be found.”

“Then they may have survived,” Rae reasons, trying to reassure him. 

Robb shakes his head, words choking in his throat. “No. The Bolton bastard can’t find them.” He swallows hard, as if forcing the words from his lips. “They’re either dead or taken.”

“If they were taken then Lord Greyjoy will ransom them. As hostages they are too valuable to be harmed. What of Theon?”

He slumps forward, shaking his head, unable to bear the weight. Rae wraps her arms around him, ignoring the tears soaking her dress. Her hands find his hair and she runs her fingers through his curls as she had Aegon and Daenerys when they were younger and woke from nightmares. “Shhh,” she croons. “Everything will be alright again.”

“H-how?” Robb sobs. His voice is quiet, muffled against her chest, but she is grateful there are no others around to hear. A king cannot be seen to cry. 

“Because the world is not always a terrible place,” she answers. “There is good in it and the gods are not cruel. The stars shine and the sun rises and the moon glows. Sorrow is only a temporary thing.”

Robb sniffs, lifting his head to look into her eyes. By the flickering torchlight she knows her eyes appear black but not for the first time she fears and wishes he sees purple. 

“How do you know?” His blue eyes are bright and red rimmed from crying. Tears make tracks on his pale cheeks and he looks at her almost as a child seeking reassurance. 

Her heart twists painfully at the sight. “Because,” she says, brushing a curl from his forehead, “the rain always comes to wash our grief away.” She presses a gentle kiss to his brow and when she pulls back he follows her, capturing her lips with his.

His face is still wet and he shakes from exhaustion or grief, she doesn’ t know, but she opens her arms to him, wrapping her legs around his waist. Her back hits the floor of her wagon and she lets him lose himself in her.

* * *

Rae unhooks Virzeth from the tracers, replacing him with a carthorse she borrows from the quartermaster. Healer Olya takes her cart, steering it along the pact dirt road with the other wagoneers while she mounts Virzeth and tries to act as if she wasn’t taught to ride by Dothraki screamers. 

Pretending to not know how to ride is easier than she anticipated. Virzeth is grumpy in the mornings and tosses his head irritably, shifting under her. Her legs stretch uncomfortably and she remembers how long it’s been since she did any riding.

“Stop that,” she orders her warhorse. He snorts at her but seems to settle, stepping out with the other riders when the army begins to move. 

They stop for the midday meal, allowing the men to rest and eat. Rae kicks Virzeth into a fast walk, searching for a food wagon to grab her own lunch. She finds one handing out bread and slices of cold ham halfway down the column. 

A soldier comes to help her down but she waves him off. “Please, no,” she says with a shy smile. “If I have help I will never learn.”

She dismounts as clumsily as she can without causing her horse dicomfor. Virzeth snorts and stamps his hoof, acting as fierce as a stallion. Rae suppresses an eyeroll; her horse is a gelding. “Shhh,” she says. “Calm down.” 

“You are afraid of him,” a woman says. “And he knows it.”

Rae turns. Lady Catelyn sits under a tree, holding a wooden circle in her hands. Rae ties Virzeth to a low hanging branch well away from Lady Catelyn so he won't be tempted to bite. “I’m not afraid of him,” she says, approaching the Stark matriarch. “May I help you, my Lady?”

Lady Catelyn shakes her head, weaving twine through the wooden circle. “No.”

Rae steps back at Lady Catelyn’s tone. “I am sorry, my Lady. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

Lady Catelyn sighs, looking up from her wooden circle. Her blue eyes, so like her son’s, are tired, her face worn. This war has taken its toll, Rae thinks sadly.

“You can’t help because a mother makes one for her children to protect them,” she explains, voice tired. “Only a mother can make them.”

Rae swallows. She wonders, suddenly, if her mothers ever made one. There were so many times, as children, when Elia and Lyanna feared for all of their lives. She remembers hiding in false floors and running to a new city hours before assassins found them. More than once Rae was resentful of her brother, her aunt and uncle who were like siblings. Their hair is silver-gold, eyes bright as sparkling amethysts. Too distinct to be hidden. She resented them even as she loved them. 

She licks her lips. “Do they work?” she asks.

Lady Catelyn looks down at the talisman in her hands. “I’ve made them twice,” she answers. “And they worked both times...after a fashion.”

Rae settles onto a log beside Lady Catelyn, placing her head below the older woman. “What happened?”

Lady Catelyn ties another knot in her circle. “I prayed for my son Bran to survive his fall.”

Rae nods. She’s heard about young Bran Stark’s fall and that it left him paralyzed from the waist down. She wrote to her Spear-Mother by way of Aegon in Qarth, remembering her mother telling stories of her brother who is Prince of Dorne and the wheeled chair he uses to move through the world. She had hoped such a gift would mend any bridges burned when she tells the Starks her true name. 

Lady Catelyn sighs. “The first time...it was many years ago and one of the boys came down with a fever. Maester Luwin said if he made it through the night, he would live. But,” she sniffed, “it would be a very long night.” She sat a little straighter, tugging at her twine. “So, I sat with him all through the darkness, until the sun rose in the sky. I listened to his ragged little breaths, his coughing, his whimpering…”

Rae nods. She loves family stories and the story of a mother’s love are as familiar to her as breathing. How many times did her Spear-Mother and Wolf-Mother wrap her scrapes, or hold her while she cried, or sit with her when she was sick? Rae knows a mother's love and, for a moment, Lady Catelyn's story brings her the sense of home she longs for so far away from her family. 

"Which boy was sick?" She asks quietly.

Lady Catelyn laughs bitterly. "Jon Snow. My honorable husband's bastard. When Ned brought that baby home from the way, I couldn't bear to look at him. The same age as my own newborn son and I couldn't - I didn't want to see this stranger's eyes staring up at me. So, I prayed. Take him away. I asked the gods to take him away. Make him die." Lady Catelyn's knuckles whiten as she grips the wooden circle. "I asked that for a baby. Then, he got the fever and I knew. I knew I was the worst, most vile woman to have ever lived. I condemned this poor, innocent, motherless child to a horrible death all because I was jealous of his mother. A woman he didn't even know." The circle in her hand creaks dangerously and she releases her grip, straightening her spine and lifting her head as if remembering who she is. Her voice is steadier when she continues, almost dispassionate. "So," she says, "I prayed again. I prayed to the Seven and to The North's Old Gods and I asked that they let him live. In return I promised to love him, to be a mother to him." She smiles ruefully. "I promised to ask my husband to call him Stark, to give him a true name and make him one of us."

"And he lived?" Rae asks.

Lady Catelyn nods but the shadows return to her face, her mouth twisting. "Yes, he lived - and I broke my promise. All that has happened since then, every bloody, horrible, terrible thing that has happened to my family is my fault. All because I could not love an innocent, motherless child." 

Silence hangs between them, heavy and cold with finality. So much Lady Catelyn is trapped in this belief, Rae realizes. That she is responsible for every horrific thing her family has endured is her fault. It is no wonder she is so cold. Still, Rae does not believe it. One person's actions are not the singular driving force of the world. 

Rae shakes her head. "I do not believe that," she informs the older woman.

Lady Catelyn scowls at her, blue eyes like shards of ice. "And what do you know?" She demands. "You are a stranger here. You do not know our gods as I do."

Rae straightens her spine, feeling the warmth of the sun as a reassuring hand on her back. She might not know these Seven the Westerosi pray to or The North's Old Gods, but she knows her sun god.

"I do not believe the gods are cruel," she answers. "I believe humans are cruel, but not the gods. They heard your prayer and helped him live and while you might not have loved him, you did not try to force him from your home. You sheltered him, fed him, allowed him to grow alongside your own children. You did the best you could. Now you work to do better. The gods honor that."

Lady Catelyn stares at her. 

Rae wonders when she became the Stark family's source of comfort. It was not something she intended when coming to The North. She intended to stay in the background, keep her eyes and ears open. Then, after a few months, quietly disappear, possibly go south to Dorne under the guise of a traveling herbalist. Now, she is the personal Healer of the King in the North, giving comfort to the grief-stricken Queen-Mother.

"Come, Lady Catelyn," she says, standing and holding out her hand, "you are not responsible for all the world's ills, and it is lunchtime. You must be hungry."

Slowly, Lady Catelyn takes her hand.


	11. Chapter 11

Rae doesn’t go to the funeral for Lord Hoster Tully. She watches from downriver as Robb and a large man she doesn’t know push the boat into the river. She can’t see Lord Hoster’s face from this distance but she doesn’t mind. His ghost might come to haunt her if he knew her thoughts. 

An old lord dead. A lord who knew her grandfather, had seen the Mad King firsthand. A lord who might fight tooth and nail against another Targaryen on the Iron Throne.

Good that he is dead, Rae decides, pulling her cloak tighter around her shoulders. Good that he is not here to oppose Daenerys. 

She slips back through the trees, returning to the camp as Lord Hoster’s pyre boat burns. 

Healer Olya greets her at the Healer’s tent. “Wounded in from the Stone Mill,” she says, passing Rae a roll of bandages. 

Rae frowns. Robb talked about the Stone Mill, something about waiting for the Mountain-That-Rides, trying to draw him out. “I didn’t think they were to attack the mill,” she says, following Olya into the tents. 

“The commander disobeyed orders. Went after the Lannisters and lost over two hundred men.” Olya leans over a bed, motioning for Rae to join her. 

The man in the bed is older, gray in his beard and long-healed scars decorating his skin. An old soldier. He smiles at seeing the Healers, showing a chipped tooth. “Ladies, ye couldn’a keep away?”

Olya laughs. “Your charms were overwhelming,” she tells him. “Come, let me see.”

The man groans and lifts his blankets. A long gash runs from the middle of his ribs down across his hip to his knee. Black silk stitches hold the gash closed and the pungent scent of herbs waft from the bandages. Rae helps Olya change the bandages and press more anti-infection herbs into the linen.

She spends her afternoon following Olya, providing assistance to the other Healers. Healer Alys sets her to crushing herbs at a table near a small bed tucked into a corner. A young boy lays on it, face sweaty and pale. Rae tries not to look at him. He’s so young. 

He gasps for air, fighting the infection from a belly cut. He’s too young to die and yet Death is coming for him. There’s nothing anyone can do to heal a belly cut but none of the Healers can stomach the idea of easing his passing with poppy. 

The boy shakes and whimpers, delirious with fever. He cries for his mother. He dies with a choked gasp.

Rae turns away, silent tears rolling down her face. A boy, no more than thirteen. Dead because a stupid man made a stupid choice.

He never should have been near the fighting. If she ever finds which stupid lordling disobeyed orders and got the boy killed she might gut them herself. 

Rae emerges from the Healer’s tent as the sun disappears below the horizon. Her back aches and she feels wrung out, as if she was a wet washcloth that someone had taken and twisted until there is nothing left in her. 

“Healer Talisa?”

She blinks. Who is - oh, she is. Rae turns to the messenger, tossing her head to shake off the exhaustion. She must be tired to forget her name. “Yes?”

The boy is younger even than the page who died. She blinks back tears and tries to focus on his words. 

“His Grace be askin’ for ye,” he says. 

Rae forces her spine straight. “Take me to him, please.”

The boy hesitates. “He says ye should bring yer Healer’s box.”

Rae wants to cry. She is so tired. All she wants is to collapse inside her tent and sleep for a thousand years. It’s getting to her, she realizes as she retrieves her box. All the death is finally getting to her. 

She takes a moment, kneeling in her tent, tries to remember why she is here in The North, watching this stupid war brought on by a stupid boy-king. 

Aegon’s laughing face appears in her mind’s eye, dark silver-gold hair shining in the sun, bright against gold-brown skin so much like hers. Viserys, tall and strong and so smart beams down at her, tiny, vivacious, determined Daenerys at his side. Both of them sparkle like diamonds. She remembers her Wolf-Mother hounded by a now-dead man, forced to flee from her home for fear of him. She remembers her Spear-Mother, golden like the sun and always smelling of tangy blood oranges who braved storms and death to keep her and her brother safe when soldiers came for their lives. 

Rae is here in The North so that those she loves may one day return home. She endures this war because it is necessary. Her spine straightens, steel returning to her limbs. She will watch a thousand die if it means her family will be safe. 

Robb waits for her in his private study, Olyvar Frey serving a pitcher of wine. He looks up at her entrance and nods. The messenger scurries away as Rae approaches his desk. “You summoned me, your Grace?”

Robb sighs. “Yes. We have prisoners in need of medical attention. Olyvar will take you.”

Rae glances at the Frey squire. His expression is blank, giving away nothing. “I didn’t realize you took prisoners, my Lord.” 

Robb’s sharp eyes flick up from his map. "My Uncle Edmure took them when he took the Stone Mill," he says. “They are Lannisters and deserving a Healer’s care.”

Rae swallows her hate at the unknown Uncle Edmure; it is because of him the boy died in the Healers' tent. No matter, she reassures herself. She will have him eventually.

She follows Olyvar through Riverrun, down to the lower levels. The smell of wet stone and dank air fills her nose but it is better than the shit and bile from dying men. 

At the far end of the Riverrun dungeon a pair of guards stand before a heavy wooden door. Their hands shift on their spears when they see her and Olyvar.

“His Grace’s orders,” Olyvar says firmly. “The Healer Talisa is to tend to the prisoners.”

The guards exchange looks but they open the heavy door. Inside, two boys, golden haired and green eyed, huddle on the flagstones. They flinch away at the screech of hinges. Rae’s heart twists for them and she kneels down just inside. “Are either of you hurt?” she asks, opening her Healer’s box. 

Cloth shifts and a soft young voice says, “Martyn is. His arm’s cut.”

Rae looks up, holding a cloth dipped in her personal store of rose water. “Give it here,” she orders gently, holding out her hand.

The boys glance at each other. Neither appears to be older than fourteen, just children. Carefully, the shorter boy holds out his arm. A long gash runs from wrist to elbow, red and angry and smudged with dirt. 

Rae frowns, working quickly to clean the cut with her washcloth, making sure to drip rose water into the gash. “This will be a fine scar one day,” she says. “A testament to your bravery. Can you be brave for a little while longer while I stitch this up?”

Martyn nods. Rae quickly threads her stitching needle with silk. 

The other boy watches as she begins her work, trying to be as fast as possible to spare the poor boy more pain. “Who are you?” he asks.

Rae ties off the thread, setting her needle aside. “His Grace’s personal Healer,” she answers as she searches for bandages. 

“Is it true what they say about him?” Martyn asks. 

She turns back to him, bandages in hand. He’s been very brave, shedding not a single tear as she worked on his arm. Were he not a Lannister, she might ask he be her helper in the Healer’s tents. “What do they say about him?”

“That he can turn into a wolf,” the other boy answers.

Rae laughs, remembering how desperately he had loved her the night before. A wolf indeed. “True,” she says. 

“And that he eats the flesh of his enemies?” Martyn presses wincing as she pulls the bandages tight on his arm. 

“True,” Rae says with a grin, “but neither of you should worry.”

“Why?” the other boy demands. “We’re Lannisters.”

Rae tilts her head at him. “What are your names?”

“Willem,” he answers, “and this is my brother Martyn.”

“Well,” Rae says, smiling at the boys, “neither of you should worry because His Grace does not eat children.”

Martyn scowls. “I’m not a child.”

A trickle of icey fear slips down Rae’s spine. She fixes both boys with a firm look. “You are _children,_ ” she says and it's almost an order. She prays that they understand. The Northmen are honorable. Northmen will not harm children. 

That surety of the northmen’s honor crumbles to ash when words sweeps through the camp of the Lannister boys’ fates. 

It feels like ice water poured over her body, dousing her from head to toe in cold fury. Murdered. Little boys. Children just venturing into the world. They shouldn’t have been anywhere near the fighting. 

She doesn’t know when she decides to find the King in the North. She strides through Riverrun in a haze, passing servants and soldiers without seeing them. It’s late afternoon. The king is probably in his study. 

The hinges creak when she opens the door.

Loyal Olyvar stands ready to serve his king. Two guards flank the door to defend their king. 

Something cracks in Rae at the sight of King Stark’s bowed head. Her hands warm, tingling with power. She closes her fists, pressing them into her legs. Her nails bite into her palms. She takes a deep breath, eyes flicking to Olyvar standing against the wall. “Leave.”

Olyvar looks nervously between her and his king. Robb nods to the boy. He scurries from the room, the door shutting with a heavy thud that echoes against the stone. 

Silence hangs heavy between them, Robb staring at her steadily. 

At his serenity, Rae’s lips curls back. “The next time you intend to execute children,” she snarls, “don’t have me heal them first.”

Robb’s eyes flash dangerously. “I didn’t have them executed.”

“And yet they are dead.”

“Not on my orders.” His voice rumbles through the room but all Rae hears is an excuse. 

“Who orders executions but a king, and of little boys no less?”

Robb strides from behind his desk, fury in every muscle. “Watch your tone!”

“Why?” Rae laughs harshly, throwing caution to the wind. Children dead, more sure to come. “Am I to be executed too?”

A thundercloud rolls over Robb’s face. “Why are you here, Talisa?”

“I wanted to see what a child killer looked like.”

“I did not order the Lannister boys’ deaths!”

“Then who did?” Rae demands. “Who would dare disobey their king?”

Air seems to leave him, shoulders slumping. “It was Rickard Karstark.”

Karstark is a dead man walking, Rae decides fiercely. When all of this is over, when the war is won, she will have him dead just as she will have Edmure Tully.

“And you let him?” she sneers, still full of an unknown fire. A wild urge consumes her, a desire to see him hurt, to make him feel even a fraction of her pain at the thought of those boys cold in their graves.

“Of course I didn’t let him!”

“So he disobeyed orders? Is that all your commanders do, disobey orders?”

Robb bares his teeth like a trapped wolf. “Yes,” he snaps. “And he will be punished for it. His execution is set for dawn.”

Rae bares her own teeth, the strength of Dragons in her veins. “First, Stone Mill. Now this. Do you think the Lannister general permits his commanders to act without his leave?!”

“Do not speak to me as if you know anything of this war!” Robb roars. He’s less than a foot from her now. Were he a different man or she a different woman she might fear his fist.

“I might not know this war but I know your army!” Rae shouts, anger overriding her better senses. “Your men whisper: the Young Wolf is weak, he lets disobedience go unpunished! A commander attacks when you order him to wait and he loses two hundred men! What do you do? Nothing! A lord kills two enemy noble hostages and what do you? Execution!” She throws words like barbs and sees them hit with every jump of the muscle in his jaw. “You value a Lannister life more than the soldiers lost in your war! Make a choice King Stark!” She hisses and the fire in the grate behind him reaches higher, crackling to match her rage. “Either all may do as they please or all will be punished the same!” 

“You would have me execute my own uncle for Stone Mill?”

“Yes!”

The shout echoes. Rae flinches, eyes closing. She knows what she said. How stupid it sounded. She breathes, nostrils flaring. “No.”

Robb waits, watching her. He has far more patience than she. 

Rae swallows. “I understand you cannot execute your uncle.”

He snorts a laugh. “I should hope not.”

“ _Don’t_ laugh at me.” A single tear rolls down her cheek and shrubs it furiously away. Her whole body aches, muscles trembling with exhaustion. Even her bones are sore. 

She is so tired. Tired of blood. Tired of shit. Tired of torn muscles and bile and belly cuts and stitching up an endless stream of men and boys and innocents. Tired of being unable to do anything but try and fix what others break and failing.

A gentle finger touches her cheek. “Talisa.” His voice is a soft rumble. "Please, love, do not cry."

His arms wrap around her, engulfing her in warmth, pulling her tight. She presses her nose into the crook of his neck.

This is not how it is supposed to be, she wants to wail. She's read so many books, studied so many campaigns. When people talk of war they never mention the dying soldiers or the innocents caught in the middle with no place to run. All she ever heard was the glory of battle, the joy in triumph. 

There is no righteous war.

She sobs, crumpling. Robb catches her, cradling her against his chest as he makes soft, soothing noises. Rae lets him hold her for several long minutes. Exhaustion and sorrow overwhelm her senses. She needs the release.

Eventually, though, she must stand again. 

Rae forces deep, shaky breaths into her lungs and coughs wetly. Robb pulls back, peering into her face. "I cannot execute my uncle," he says gently.

"You shouldn't execute Lord Karstark either," Rae responds even as the words taste vile on her tongue. She wants Karstark as cold as the innocent Lannister boys - but not yet. "He is too important. If you execute him then his men will desert you."

"No." Robb shakes his head. "You were right before. I cannot let disobedience go unpunished. Lord Karstark _must_ be executed for his treason."

"But-"

"I don't think I ever noticed before," Robb interrupts, strong voice a gentle whisper, "but your eyes are purple."

Rae blinks, caught off guard. "Wh-what?"

Robb pushes strands of black hair from her face. "Your eyes are purple," he repeats. "They seem almost black but in the right light…"

She licks her lips nervously. "Purple eyes are not so rare in Volantis."

He tilts her head up. "They're beautiful." His lips are warm and soft against hers and she welcomes the touch. With him pressed against her, his strong arms holding her tight, she forgets, for a moment, the horrors of the world. 


	12. Chapter 12

The desertion of the Karstark bannermen tempers Rae's satisfaction at hearing of his execution.

Almost half the army gone overnight. Robb needs those men. Rae needs Robb to have those men. Without them how can he win? And if he does not win, how will he be a useful ally to her when the Targaryens return to take back their home? If he is not a useful ally then how can she convince her family that The North deserves its independence?

It’s all such a muddled mess. Rae can’t see a solution. She rubs her eyes tiredly, settling before her small brazier. Perhaps her Spear-Mother can shed some light.

The fire hisses as three drops of her scarlet blood fall. The red-orange tongues lick higher, seeking more of her, but she pulls back. Fire scrying for more than just vague shapes requires blood, as most ancient magics do, but her sun god is always clear in the practice of such spells: do not kill. She presses a square of linen soaked with rose water to the tiny pinprick absently, focusing on the image forming in the fire.

With the addition of blood to her spell, the picture forming isn't made of flames twisted into the semblance of her mother. Rather, she can see her mother as if she is looking through a slightly warped piece of glass. 

Elia Martell Targaryen sits in a lovely garden, full of tall palm trees and lush flowers. She wears a gold-orange dress, golden ornaments woven through her black hair. A man whom Rae can only guess is her mother's brother by the wheeled chair he sits in, is beside her at a long table. 

They’re pouring over maps and sheafs of parchment, Elia scribbling notes and gesturing to places on the map. Horse, Dragon, Wolf, Lion, Stag and Rose figurines are scattered across what Rae thinks is Westeros. They’re marking positions, she realizes, twisting the image to peer between their shoulders. Wolves for the Northmen and Lions for the Lannisters. 

She thinks the Roses are for the Tyrell forces, concentrated with the Lions and in the region that is probably the Reach. Her memories of lessons in Westerosi geography are not clear but she recognizes that the Stag figurine is placed squarely at Storm’s End in the Stormlands. Three Horse figures range along the Dornish countryside and a single, tiny Dragon figurine is placed alongside a Wolf in The North. Rae smiles. Her mother has not forgotten her.

“What are you doing?”

Rae almost toppels at the sudden voice. The images in the fire disappear with a twist of flame, taking the face of her Spear-Mother and the stranger with her mother's nose. With a quick thanks that her fire is small and her body blocks most of it, she turns on her knees towards the entrance to her tent.

Lady Catelyn stands above her, watching her curiously. 

Rae scrambles to her feet. “I was meditating, my Lady. It helps with my peace of mind."

"Ah." Lady Catelyn nods. She steps inside, surveying the small space. “You have, uh, a very nice tent.”

Rae laughs. “If you say so, my Lady.” She follows her gaze, “I’m sorry I don’t have anywhere to sit. I might have some tea-”

Lady Catelyn holds up her hand. “No, that’s alright. I just wanted to speak for a moment.”

Rae glances over Lady Catelyn’s shoulder. Four guards stand outside the tent, watching the passersby and occasionally glancing inside. “Would you like me to close the flap, my Lady, for privacy?”

Lady Catelyn shakes her head. “No, no. I doubt they would let you anyways. Besides, what I have to say won’t take long.”

Rae ducks her head. “Of course, my Lady. How may I be of service?”

“You love my son.”

Rae blinks, looking up sharply.

“You don’t have to answer,” Lady Catelyn says when Rae opens her mouth. “I know you do. I can see it in your eyes. And he loves you, too.”

Rae considers the Stark matriarch. One day, probably soon, she will meet this woman on equal footing. But today is not that day. If she shows too much now she might wind up dead and won’t that just put the fox in the hen house.

“If you say so, my Lady,” she replies, folding her hands in front of her demurely.

Lady Catelyn snorts. “I do say so.” She turns abruptly, pacing to the other end of the tent. “You are aware he is engaged to be married.”

“I am.”

“To a Frey girl. A proper Westerosi Lady.” She turns again, pacing back towards Rae. “You’re sleeping with him, I know you are. But don’t get any ideas. You will not be Queen in the North.”

Rae suppresses a sneer. She is sister to the Dragon Queen, her vassal, her eyes and ears. She is Princess of Dragonstone. She is already equal to any Queen in the North. Instead, Rae lowers her eyes. “I have no intention to marry your son, my Lady. He has already asked me and I have already said no.”

Lady Catelyn’s bright blue eyes fix on her. “He asked you to marry him?”

“Yes, my Lady, and I said no.”

She frowns at Rae. “Why would you do that?”

Rae holds out her hands helplessly and speaks the absolute truth simply because, for the first time in months, she can. “I love him. I will not see him destroyed if I can help it.”

Lady Catelyn’s blue eyes bore into her.

Rae smiles, self deprecating and sad. “I am your son’s lover and his mistress for so long as he is unmarried.”

“And when he is married?” Lady Catelyn demands.

Rae laughs. It’s a harsh sound that cuts through the air like a blunt warhammer, rough and painful, leaving a bruise in her ears. “What does it matter? He’ll be married for a bridge.”

Lady Catelyn steps toward her and Rae realizes for the first time that the Stark matriarch is taller than she is by at least four inches. "An important bridge."

"Is it?" Rae asks. "I can only assume so since you bought it with a crown."

"It was the only way," Lady Catelyn snaps 

"Yes," Rae nods, "I know. You needed to reach King's Landing to save Lord Stark. But Lord Stark is dead and, please forgive me for saying, my Lady, but The North is floundering. What purpose drives you now?"

Lady Catelyn frowns at her with a face like stone. Finally, she shifts away, but her eyes do not leave Rae's. "You are far more than just another Healer."

Rae shrugs. "My father was a general and he taught me a great deal," she lies. "He always said that a clear, driving purpose is more effective than the number of your soldiers." 

Of course, her father said no such thing. That was a lesson Ilyrio's who believes so firmly in the Targaryen family that he spent more gold than Rae could count keeping them safe. Her father, the famed Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, was dead in the Trident before she could even remember the sound of his voice. She wonders vaguely if he fell near where she stands, camped with the army outside Riverrun.

Lady Catelyn watches for a long, tense moment. Then, as suddenly as she came, she swept away, guards trailing silently behind.

Rae watches her go. Lady Catelyn fears for the marriage she arranged for Robb to the Frey girl. She fears Rae will somehow interfere.

Well, she needn't have worried. Rae will not marry save with the approval of her family and that approval will never come unless her prospective husband is useful to the Taegaryens.

With a sigh, Rae turns back to her small fire. She needs a cup of restoring tea.

Robb finds her as she pours her second cup. Silently, she gets another chipped earthenware cup from her packs and pours him a cup too. She doesn't expect him to drink it but it would be rude not to offer.

"The Karstarks have gone," he says abruptly, removing his sword and setting it aside before settling beside her.

"I did notice," she says, passing him the cup.

Robb stares into the dark liquid. "Almost half the army gone overnight. Everyone always worries about what Tywin Lannister will do but he doesn't need to do anything. All he need do is wait and watch us unravel."

Rae waits, thinking he might go one, but he doesn't. She takes a sip of her own tea, then asks, "What will you do?"

"Attack King's Landing?" He suggests with a harsh laugh. "I can't do that."

Rae tilts her head. "Was that not your original plan?" She asks. "Go to King's Landing and retrieve your sisters and father."

Robb shakes his head tiredly. "That was the plan but with the way things stand now, Tywin Lannister would crush us in a day."

"You could ride north," she suggests, taking another sip of her tea. It's jasmine tea from Pentos, her favorite. "The Ironborn still attack the western coast, yes? Take back your land then wait out the winter in Winterfell."

"That's no good either," Robb sighs. "Winter could last five years. Once my bannermen are home again, sitting by the fire, surrounded by their families, warm and safe, they'll never ride south again."

"Answer me honestly," Rae says quietly, remembering her words to Lady Catelyn. "What is it you want from the war?"

Robb stays silent for several long moments. The fire crackles in the brazier and Rae waits. He told her before he doesn't want the Iron Throne, that all he wants is to go home, but that was months ago. So much has changed since then.

Finally, Robb lifts his head. "I want...I want The North's independence. I want a treaty with the Lannisters that ends this bloody war that declares The North a free and separate kingdom, out from under whichever bloody cunt sits their fat arse on the Iron Throne. I want my men to be able to go home with the assurance that they will never have to go to war again. And I want my sisters to come with me back to Winterfell."

Rae's gut twists. So it will be Six Kingdoms, then, not Seven. Rae straightens her spine. She can work with that.

"You need allies," she says. "Your mother went to a Stormland lordling who played at being king, but he died. Doesn't he have an older brother? Why do you not approach him. I'm sure he wants to kill Lions just as much as you do."

Robb frowns. "Lord Stannis," he says. "But he isn't interested in negotiations. He intends to have all of the Seven Kingdoms or it is war."

Rae considers. So the Storm Lord will not negotiate? She hopes he relinquishes his claim when her family arrives.

"Which kingdoms do you have?" She asks.

"The North and the Riverlands," he answers.

Rae nods, thinking. "The Iron Islands are an enemy, that's three. The Lannisters have the Westerlands, that's four. What are the other three?"

Robb cracks a smile. "There are actually nine kingdoms in Westeros."

"Really?" Rae tucks herself into Robb's side, propping her chin on his shoulder.

Robb lays his arm across her lap, large hand cupping her thigh to pull her closer. "Aye," he says. "Nine kingdoms in the Seven Kingdoms."

"You have two of nine, then," Rae says. "Which ones do the Lannisters have?"

Robb considers for a moment. "They'll have the Crownlands and the Westerlands. And the Reach after Renly was killed."

"Which kingdoms does that leave? Who hasn't chosen a side?"

Robb bites his lip. "Only the Vale and...Dorne."

Rae's heart leaps at the mention of her mother's home, but she forces herself to ask, "Didn't I hear your aunt ruled the Vale?"

"Aye," Robb answers, "she does, but she is almost as mad as the Mad King. Mother already went to her for help and she refused."

"Then go to her bannermen. If she is as mad as you say, then surely her bannermen will oust her."

Robb shakes his head. "No. I cannot ask bannermen to disobey their Lord."

Rae scowls. It's his bloody honor that prevents him from taking advantage of the situation. Rumors fly all across camp that it was the Lannisters who poisoned the old Lord of the Vale, Jon Arryn. How could Robb not see to use that rumor?

Rae files her irritation away. She will use it later when she sends word to her family. Daenerys won't balk at bypassing a mad woman to speak directly to the Vale's bannermen.

"What about Dorne then?" She asks instead but again Robb shakes his head.

"Too far away. They are on the opposite side of the continent and what reason would they have to go against the Lannisters?"

Rae bites her lip to keep from snapping. Dorne has every reason to go against the Lannisters. Were it not for the Lannisters, Elia might not have been forced to flee King's Landing with her children, to fake their deaths and hide from the world. Were it not for the Lannisters a Dornish queen would sit upon the Iron Throne this very day. Were it not for the Lannisters Rae would have grown up a true princess rather than a hunted refugee. Dorne owes the Lannisters a great deal of pain. 

"It never hurts to ask," Rae says with a carefully careless shrug. "The worst they can say is no."

Robb hums, a noncommittal sound, but he doesn’t outright refuse her suggestion. Rae considers that a win and presses a soft kiss to his cheek. “Come to bed, my love. Leave all thoughts of war until tomorrow.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright y'all. Here is the first summit of this week's writing frenzy. Part 1 of why I have been cranking out a chapter a day all week. I have had this chapter written for 3 months, almost since I first began this fic. I hope you enjoy!

Rae wipes her hands of dirt on the rough cloth of her apron. Robb is in Council and will not come to her tent for hours yet.

She leaves the Healers to their work, stepping out from the cloying heat into cool night air. In her Healer’s dress she is all but invisible to these northern soldiers and she prefers it that way. Mayhaps one day all will bow to her as sister to the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms - though she suspects it to be more like six should the Northmen have their way - but, for now, she is just another camp follower and Healer in wartime save when Robb Stark comes to her. Then the whispers that she has enchanted the young King in the North follow her like ripples across water. 

“Mistress Talisa?” a messenger boy steps into her path.

Rae blinks at him. “Yes?”

“There’s a lady be wishin’ to speak with ye, Miss. Claims you an’ her know each other?”

Rae frowns. “Where is she?”

The boy points to a copse of trees just outside the ring of firelight. “There, Miss.”

Rae nods to the boy in thanks even as nerves twist her insides. A woman waiting for her in the dark, far from any help. That bodes well.

She returns to her tent to collect the spear masquerading as a walking staff then goes where the boy pointed. Every nerve vibrates and she clutches her spear, listening hard for any hint of a threat. 

A shadow moves in the dim twilight. “Talisa?”

Rae’s heart skips. She knows that voice. “Wolf-Mother?”

Lyanna Stark steps from the trees, her face half hidden by the hood of her cloak.

Rae launches herself at her Wolf-Mother with a cry, wrapping the older woman in her arms. She has not seen Lyanna Stark Targaryen since she left her with Daenerys, Viserys, and Aegon in Qarth. 

“It is good to see you, my little sun,” Lyanna says, holding her tight.

Rae pulls back but her arms do not leave Lyanna. “What are you doing here?”

“Our Dragon Queen has an army now,” Lyanna answers. “She took Unsullied from Astapor and now wages war against chains in the Liberation of Slaver’s Bay.”

“What?”

“She’s well on her way to conquest, now. She intends for Yunkai to be next and she sent me here to begin to pave the way for her return.”

Rae laughs weakly because that is all she can think to do. Daenerys is their chosen queen, learned in the ways of ruling and has the temper for it with kindness in her heart. Elia and Lyanna have raised all their children to one day reclaim the Seven Kingdoms with Daenerys on the Iron Throne. It was always a far off dream for Rae who was born Rhaenys Martell Targaryen - until Daenerys strode from the fire with three dragons clinging to her hair, shoulders, and cradled in her arms. 

Now, Rae is here, in The North, spying on the Young Wolf who is her Wolf-Mother’s nephew to see if he is a worthy ally.

“And what of Eggy and Vis?”

“Your brothers are well,” Lyanna answers with a smile. “Viserys is truly the Hand of the Queen now and is very good at tempering some of his sister’s worst impulses.”

“What of that Jorah Mormont?” Rae asks. She has met some Bears of Bear Island while in The North and she likes them a great deal, especially their Lady Maege Mormont.

“He is as devoted to your sister as ever and she has brought him into her Small Council. What’s more, Ser Barristan Selmy has found us.”

“Ser Barristan Selmy? I do not know him.”

“He was your father Rhaegar’s personal guard and a good man. It was he who helped smuggle you, Eggy, and your mother from King’s Landing.”

An old ache stirs in her heart but she grieved and released her father’s ghost long ago. “So you are here at Dany’s request?”

“Yes. Ser Barristan brought news of the War of Five Kings and the time is ripe for alliances.”

“And the long lost daughter of House Stark is a better envoy than a girl claiming to be a dead Dragon Princess.”

Lyanna’s gray eyes sparkle. “Aye. And I bring with me two thousand Unsullied, an overture of friendship from the Dragon Queen.”

Rae smiles. “Where have you hidden two thousand soldiers, Wolf-Mother?”

Lyanna’s grin is as wolfish as her House sigil. “That is a secret I will never tell, but they are poised to march at the Young Wolf’s direction. So, take me to that nephew of mine.”

Sudden anxiety sweeps through Rae at the reminder of Robb Stark. Of her lover and the betrayal he is sure to feel when her deception is revealed. Still, she has lived her life to place a Targaryen on the Iron Throne, to place  _ Dany _ on the Iron Throne. She will not fail her aunt by blood who is the sister of her heart. 

Rae’s shoulders slump. “There is something I must tell you, Wolf-Mother.”

“What is it, dear heart?”

“I am your nephew’s lover.” It comes blunty from Rae’s lips, as important things usually do. She has no time for hedging or flowery words to obscure her meaning, not for things like this.

Lyanna’s dark eyebrows rise. “Really, now? I assume he does not know who you are?”

Rae snorts. “He would not believe me if I told him. And I love him. That seemed to be the only thing that mattered at the time.”

“Well, perhaps we can strengthen our alliance with your marriage.”

Rae shakes her head. “No. He is promised to a daughter of Lord Walder Frey as payment for passage through The Twins.”

Lyanna waves her hand. “My Unsullied will take The Twins and then he will be free to marry you and all will be well, you will see. Now, take me to my nephew who is King in the North.”

Rae cannot help but smile at her Wolf-Mother’s sureness and motions for Lyanna to follow. “This way.”

The Stark camp is calm, men eating and talking at their fires or sleeping in their tents. Rae and Lyanna are ignored, nothing more than another pair of women in cloaks to ward off the chill night. Robb’s tent is at the center of the camp and Rae pauses for a moment, listening for raised voices. 

When she hears nothing, she pushes the tent flap aside and steps inside.

Robb, her love who will hate her, sits at one of the long tables inside his tent, studying maps and charts. Beside him is Lady Catelyn Stark who already hates her for leading her son astray. Rae does not blame the red haired woman, not when Robb’s proposal almost compromised his campaign. Still, perhaps this gift will ease the lady’s opinion of her - but probably not.

“Your Grace,” she says.

Robb looks up, startled. A beautiful smile stretches across his face and Rae cannot help but return it. “Lady Talisa,” he greets her, standing. Lady Catelyn says nothing, only watches her with brittle blue eyes.

“Your Grace,” Rae repeats, licking your lips. “I have someone who would like to meet you.”

Robb frowns. “Who-?” But Rae is already turning aside, lifting the flap so the hooded and cloaked figure can enter the tent. 

Robb’s hand automatically goes to finger the hilt of his sword but he does not draw the blade, watching the hooded figure. 

Lyanna removes her hood and Rae breaths deep. “Your Grace, may I introduce Lady Lyanna Stark Targaryen, Princess of Dragonstone and the Seven Kingdoms, the Wolf Maid of Winterfell, and aunt of the King in the North whose name is Stark.”

Lady Catelyn jumps to her feet, chair clattering to the floor, face white as snow, blue eyes bulging. “Th - This cannot be,” she gasps, staring at the ghost of a woman she long thought dead.

“Hello, goodsister,” Lyanna greets her brother’s widow. “I am glad to see you well.”

Robb gulps, looking between his mother and his aunt, then he seems to remember Rae is there and he turns on her. “You come bringing a ghost from the dead,” he snarls, “so who does that make you?”

Rae flinches at the anger in his words, but she is Elia’s daughter, the Dragon of Dorne, the Fire Dancer whose magic resides in the Sun. She is sister to the Silver Dragon and niece to the Dragon Queen and her Hand. She loves Robb Stark who is the Young Wolf of Winterfell, but she will not be cowed by his rage. 

She lifts her head. “I am another ghost,” she tells him, “born Rhaenys Martell Targaryen, daughter of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and Princess Elia Martell. I am a Princess of Dorne, Princess of Dragonstone, and advisor to Queen Daenerys Stormborn, First of her Name, who is the Rightful Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men.”

Robb’s face pales like his mother’s. Silently, he stares at her, seeming frozen in time, unable to move in his chair.

Lyanna, may all the gods bless her, has no time for dramatics. She returned to Westeros to wage war on behalf of the goodsister she raised as a daughter and in support of her nephew in memory of her beloved brother. “Your mother herself confirms who I am, nephew,” she says briskly, ignoring Robb’s stunned silence. “I brought two thousand soldiers as gifts from Queen Daenerys Targaryen. Tell me where they are needed and we will lead them to war on your behalf.”

“We?’ Robb’s voice is strangled and he has yet to take his eyes from Rae.

Lyanna glances at Rhaenys, a scheming sparkle in her gray eyes. “My daughter has told me of her love for you,” she says, “but, as I am sure you no longer return it, we will take our leave and wage your war.”

Robb shoots to his feet, suddenly wild eyed. “Listen here,” he snarls at his aunt, seeming to forget himself.

“I was under the impression you were betrothed, your Grace,” interrupts Lyanna, her words smooth and innocent as silk. “My darling Rhaenys told me of her sorrow and how her love for you forces her to deny her own happiness for the sake of your triumph. Or do you no longer need The Twins?”

Robb glares and, were he capable, Rae is certain he would breath fire. 

Lyanna meets his gaze with the cool serenity of a mountain lake. “Of course, if you had someone loyal to you without question commanding The Twins, what need would you have for marriage to a Frey girl?”

Something lights in Robb’s eyes and hope soars in Rhaenys' heart. “Two thousand soldiers, you said?”

“Aye,” Lyanna confirms with nod. “Two thousand freed Unsullied from Astapor who will not ransack or murder any but those soldiers who fight back.”

Robb seems to consider. Rhaenys waits, breath strangling in her lungs. She loves him, by all the gods in the world, known and not, she loves him. She doesn’t give a damn about being queen. She doesn’t care about being a great lady. All she wants is him. 

“How did you survive?” Lady Catelyn’s voice is soft, almost weak. An interruption that needs immediate answers. She hasn’t taken her eyes from Lyanna.

Lyanna meets her goodsister’s Tully blue gaze with Stark gray. “Ned found me on my birthing bed in the Tower of Joy and I knew I could not stay in Westeros when he told me of my Rhaegar’s death.”

“Your Rhaegar?” Something flashes across Lady Catelyn’s eyes. Rhaenys' grip tightens on her walking stick that is truly a spear, having forgotten she held the weapon in her hand. 

“My Rhaegar and my Elia,” Lyanna confirms with Winter's chill in her voice. “They whom I chose to love. They who welcomed me and returned my love tenfold. I tried to tell my brothers, I tried to tell my father and my mother, but they would not listen. So Rhaegar spirited me away after I begged and cried and in secret I married my loves beneath a weirwood tree in Dorne.”

“You stupid, selfish girl!” Lady Catelyn shrieks. “You killed my Brandon, you killed your own father!”

“Mother!” Robb cries.

Rhaenys adjusts her grip on her spear, ready to defend her Wolf-Mother as needed. But she need not have worried.

“Perhaps,” Lyanna says cooly, “but I will never regret the choices I have made for it gave me a family of my choosing and my own freedom. Now I need only reunite with my son and I will be content.”

Lady Catelyn blinks, shaken from her rage. “Your son?”

“Yes, my son. A babe brought to Winterfell by Ned to be raised as his own. You know the boy of whom I speak.”

Robb makes a strangled sound. “Jon,” he breaths.

“Jon Snow is your son?” Lady Catelyn shrieks.

“Is that what Ned called him? His true name is Jaehaerys.”

Rhaenys listens with rapt attention, momentarily forgetting her own heartache. This is better than a mummer's play. Lyanna never said a word about a son. And for her son to be Jon Snow whom Lady Catelyn hated so vehemently? Her brothers and sister will want to know everything.

Lyanna sees something in Lady Catelyn's face. "You believed my brother dishonored you," she sneers. "The honorable Ned Stark brings home a bastard son." Her gray eyes flick to Robb. "Was yours even born yet or did you fear the bastard would be the only son my brother would ever have?"

Lady Catelyn's hand trembles but she does not answer.

“No matter,” Lyanna says. “I will have word of him now, if you please.”

“He’s with the Night’s Watch,” Robb answers quietly.

Lyanna’s eyebrow rises. “The Night’s Watch?”

“What’s the Night’s Watch?’

Lady Catelyn twitches as if startled. “They guard the northern border,” she answers, blinking at Rhaenys as if just remembering she is there. 

Rhaenys frowns. “Why does the northern border need guarding?”

“Because of the Wildlings and the Night King, dear heart. Don’t you remember the stories I told you?”

Rhaeyns glances at her Wolf-Mother. “But those are just stories…”

“Stories rooted in truth, as all legends are,” Lyanna says. She refocuses on the Starks. “And my son has joined them, you say? A noble choice. Once we have won this war I will need to go to him. Now, tell me how we fare.”

“Why not ask your spy?” Robb spits.

This time Rhaenys does flinch. She deserves his anger, she knows she does. She never intended for her love to take her this far. But she lay with him, loved him, welcomed him into her arms more times than she can count. She refused his proposal but when he begged her to say she did not love him the words would not pass her lips. 

Lyanna rests a comforting hand on Rhaenys' shoulder. “Were it not for Rhaenys, I would not be here,” she says cooly. “My daughter never gave details of your stratagems. Only wrote that she believed you would be a good ally. Do not hate her for the love she bears her family.”

“An ally for what?” Lady Catelyn asks suspiciously. 

"For our Queen Daenarys of House Targaryen. I thought we made that clear?"

Robb's brows furrows, his blue eyes hardening to steel. "The North has chosen their King and it is not a Dragon."

A slow smile spreads across Lyanna's face. "A pup grown into a Wolf. Your father would be proud." She flips her long braid over her shoulder, the silver strands threading through chestnutt glinting in the torchlight. "No matter. I am sure The North and Queen Daenerys can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement. Until then, we have Lions to kill."


	14. Chapter 14

Rhaenys watches Robb, willing him to look at her.

He keeps his face turned away.

"We will discuss strategy tomorrow," he says into the heavy silence.

When Lyanna bows her head, Rhaenys dips a deep curtsey. The tent floor swims before her eyes but she holds her head high, spine straight. She loved him at her own peril. She knew that when they started and still she chose this path. Now it is time to pay the gods.

When she looks up, Robb's cold blue eyes watch her in a face like stone. Unbidden, a single tear trails down her cheek, but she turns and follows Lyanna from the tent without acknowledging the emotion. 

They don't speak until they enter Rhaenys' small tent. Lyanna surveys the space before nodding decisively. "Let's get your things packed."

Her calm, sure voice jolts Rhaenys from her pain. She turns on her Wolf-Mother. "Why did you not tell us we have another brother?"

Lyanna's shoulders tense. She stays resolutely turned away, refusing to face her daughter’s accusing purple eyes, so like her father’s. "Rhaenys-"

"Does Spear-Mother know?"

Slowly, Lyanna turns to her. “Yes, Elia knows.”

“Then how could you not tell us?” Rhaenys demands. She’s not accustomed to her mothers keeping secrets. Lyanna and Elia always said secrets destroy. How could they keep something like this from them? How could they not tell her she had another brother?

Lyanna sighs. “Rhaenys, you have to understand-”

“No!” Rhaenys cries, emotions high and desperate for release. “No, I don’t have to understand! You left him! You abandoned him and then pretended he doesn’t exist for twenty years!”

“It hurt!”

Rhaenys stops. Lyanna doesn’t yell. She never raises her voice. When Lyanna is angry she gets quiet and stares the miscreants down, but she doesn’t yell.

Lyanna breaths deep, swallowing back tears. When she speaks again her voice is quieter, thick with pain. “Your brother, my Jaehaerys, was born a month early in the Tower of Joy in Dorne where your mother and father hid me away when Robert Baratheon began his rebellion.” She looks at Rhaenys, pale eyes shadowed and full of tears. “He was weak, couldn’t even cry. My brother found me and I knew Baratheon soldiers weren’t far behind. I had to run and I knew in my heart that my son would not survive if I brought him with me.”

Rhaenys swallows. “So you gave him to your brother.”

Lyanna nods. “Yes, I gave my son to my brother to raise. Ned would be able to travel slower and with Ned my son would not be hunted.”

Rhaenys takes in a deep, shaky breath. It’s terrible but she understands. She spent a great deal of her life running. More than once Aegon fell ill before he turned three, exhausted by the constant moving and exposed to harsh conditions that left even Viserys feverish when he was the strongest amongst them. A baby born early and weak probably wouldn’t have survived.

“And now he is a man grown,” Rhaenys says. 

Lyanna nods. “Yes, and he will probably hate me. But, when all this is over, I will meet him and try to explain why I made the choice I did.”

Rhaenys nods. “Alright.” There is nothing more she can say. What's done is done and punishing Lyanna for a choice that already hurts will not change the past - and it will not ease her own heartache.

She looks around, searching for something else to think about. The coals in the brazier glow pale red and she douses them with the bucket of water she fetched from the nearby river earlier. 

Lyanna helps her dismantle the tent then load it, her small brazier, and her bedroll into Virzeth’s wagon. Her irritable horse snorts and stamps at them but doesn’t try to bite her when she hitches him up.

“Let me, little sun,” Lyanna says, taking the reins. 

Rhaenys settles onto the bench seat, letting Lyanna guide Virzeth along the dark woodland path out of camp. She’s not sure how long the wagon trundles along. She’s sure she fell asleep at one point and when she blinks she sees something glowing between the trees. 

A dark figure steps into the path and Lyanna brings up the reins.

“ _Qilōni is konīr_?” A deep voice asks in Valyrian. The familiar language is music to Rhaenys’ ears and she suppresses a smile.

“It’s me, Timpa,” Lyanna answers in Westerosi. 

A torch flickers to life, illuminating the face of a young man with dark brown skin and deep brown eyes. In his other hand he holds a spear and the torchlight glints off the wickedly sharp spearhead. He wears black leather armour decorated with a white laughing tree. 

Rhaenys almost rolls her eyes. She knows the story of the Knight of the Laughing Tree. Her Wolf-Mother would have that somewhere on her legion of Unsullied. 

“ _Ñuha riña_ ,” Timpa bows upon seeing her.

“Timpa Genes,” Lyanna greets the soldier as she climbs down from the wagon. Rhaenys follows suit, hiking up her skirts to keep them from getting caught in the axle. 

“How it go?” he asks with halting words, stepping forward, holding the torch higher. 

Lyanna tosses her head, holding herself straight. “It went as well as can be expected. Please,” she turns, gesturing to the Rhaenys, "allow me to introduce my daughter, Rhaenys."

Rhaenys nods to him. “ _Issa sȳz naejot rhaenagon ao,_ ” she says.

Timpa smiles. “ _Ao ȳdragon Valyrīha?_ ”

“ _Issa ñuha muña ēngos,_ ” Rhaenys answers.

Lyanna looks between the two. “I am jealous,” she says mildly. “I have never been a great hand at languages and Timpa is learning Westerosi so well.”

Rhaenys snorts, taking the hint. “Are you our general?”

Timpa nods. “Yes. I lead Unsullied here.”

“Come,” Lyanna says, “meet our men.” 

Rhaenys takes Virzeth’s reins and leads him after Timpa and Lyanna through the trees into a clearing. At the center, arranged around a glowing fire, are three large tents. Dark skinned men in black leather armour lounge about the fire, the low murmur of voices filling the air.

Timpa steps forward. “ _Iōragon bē!”_

His barked order echoes through the clearing and the men scramble to their feet. They stand at attention, shoulders back, spines straight, chins up. Rhaenys surveys them curiously. They’re all tall, all dark skinned in varying shades of deep brown with shaved heads and all wear the black armour decorated with Lyanna’s Laughing Tree.

_“Vali, bisa iksis Rhaenys hen Targārien Lentor, mandia naejot se dāria._ ”

There are twenty or so Unsullied and they all fix her with serious dark eyes. Rhaenys has the distinct impression that they are memorizing her face. 

The tent flap facing Rhaenys opens and a tall, bronze skinned man with kinky black hair tied back in a single braid emerges. His dark eyes catch on Rhaenys and he grins. “ _Naqis inavva!_ ”

Rhaenys gasps. “Kovarro?”

The Dothraki bloodrider’s white teeth flash against his dark skin. In the days following Daenerys’ marriage to Khal Drogo, it was Kovarro who taught Rhaenys to ride like a Dothraki screamer. When more than one bloodrider showed far too much interest in her for comfort, he claimed her as sister, making her untouchable without his permission. When he discovered her practicing with Dark Sister he thought it was an amazing feat then insisted on sparring with her on foot and on horseback. Kovarro is, by far, Rhaenys’ favorite Dothraki.

Kovarro bounds across the campsite to wrap her in a barrel chested hug, bulging arms engulfing her. Rhaenys breaths in deep, letting the scent of leather, horses, and something uniquely Dothraki, like summer sun and long grass, fill her lungs. She hadn’t realized how much she missed that scent.

“ _Me ajjin davra tat tihat yer, gaezo,_ ” she whispers into his chest.

“ _Anha missed yer ale,_ ” he whispers back.

When Rhaenys pulls back she beams up into his face.

“Kovarro?” A new voice calls from the tent.

Rhaenys peers around his broad shoulders. Irri stands in the tent’s entryway, dressed in a thick cloak over her Dothraki leathers. She smiles when she sees Rhaenys.

Rhaenys steps away from Kovarro to pull the handmaiden into a warm hug. Irri’s arms are thinner than Kovarro’s but her embrace is just as warm, accompanied by that same Dothraki scent. Memories of sitting in tents alongside Daenerys, surrounded by Irri, Jhiqui, and Doreah fill her heart.

When she pulls back, Irri peers into Rhaenys’ face with bright eyes. “Come,” she says. “Bath and new clothes. Will be good for you.”

Rhaenys smiles shakily. Of course Irri sees her. Irri always sees everything. She’s more perceptive than anyone ever gives her credit for.

With the help of Kovarro and two Unsullied, Irri prepares a warm bath for Rhaenys, the first she’s had in months. Rhaenys dips below the water, holding her breath and floating suspended for a long moment, trying to pull the peace and quiet of the water into her soul. When she resurfaces she scrubs her skin clean with scented oils Irri produces from a heavy trunk.

When Rhaenys finally stands from the tub, Irri helps her into a warm robe then fetches a bowl of stew and slice of bread for her to eat. “Not so good for sadness,” she says as she hands it to Rhaenys, “but is better than nothing.”

“You are a good friend,” Rhaenys says and begins to eat. 

The stew steams in the bowl and warms her belly, chasing away the cold numbing her limbs, and flavored with familiar spices from all across Essos, taken as tribute by khalasars. The bread is just as warm and she mops up the dregs before stuffing it into her mouth. 

“Tell,” Irri says. “What is wrong?”

Rhaenys shakes her head, reaching out to hold Irri’s hand. “Nothing that can be fixed tonight,” she answers, squeezing her hand gently, “but thank you for asking.” 

Lyanna enters the tent, followed by Kovarro and Timpa. They settle around the tent in a circle and Rhaenys straightens. There is a determined glint in Lyanna’s eyes. 

“We have - two squads - Unsullied here,” Timpa begins. 

Lyanna nods. “The rest are on ships anchored in The Bite, just west of the Three Sisters.”

Rhaenys’ eyebrow rises. “And there are two thousand of them?”

Timpa nods. “Yes.”

Rhaenys considers the Unsullied general. “And your men are willing to fight for the King in the North?”

It’s important that the Unsullied know who and what they are fighting for. Rhaenys knows they must have been slaves, with Lyanna making the point to call them freed. She wonders if they understand what freedom means. 

“We fight for our Queen,” Timpa answers. “We freed by Daenerys Stormborn - we fight for Daenerys Stormborn. She say fight here important. We fight here.”

Rhaenys breaths deep. “Alright then. What is our plan?”

Kovarro mutters something in Dothraki that Rhaenys only half catches. Irri laughs. “No,” she tells him, “we do not swarm.”

Of course Kovarro wants to swarm.

“We have the men,” Lyanna says, “but our job here is to build bridges, make friends. To do that, we must wage the North King’s war as he sees fit - unless my nephew is stupid.” She glanced at Rhaenys. “Is he stupid?”

Rhaenys bites her lip. No, Robb is not stupid, but…”He’s an idealist,” she tells them, “and I don’t think he knows what he wants anymore. There was treason in the ranks as his lords thought they could do a better job than him. He’s young. He has respect by name alone.” She swallows and wonders if the harshness of her words are compensation. “He could be a good king but he needs to understand his purpose first.”

Kovarro nods. “Revenge - not good war.”

Rhaenys blinks at him. When last she saw Kovarro, his Westerosi was limited to “yes” and “fuck off.” It’s nice to see his cleverness in action.

“The North wants it’s freedom,” Rhaenys continues, “and, honestly, they deserve it.”

Lyanna nods. “An alliance, then. We’ll help them free the North, they help us retake the Iron Throne.”

“And when all this is over?” Rhaenys asks.

“When all this is over, we will have a New Valyria,” Lyanna says firmly, “stretching across the Narrow Sea, from Westeros to Daenerys’s Free Cities.”

“And The North will be our closest ally,” Rhaenys says, “independent of Targaryen rule.”

Lyanna nods. “Yes.”

Rhaenys bites her lip nervously. “Will Daenerys accept this?” she asks.

Lyanna smiles. “She already has.”

  
  
****

* * *

**Translations**

Valyrian 

_Qilōni is konīr_ \- Who goes there?

_Ñuha riña_ \- My lady

_Issa sȳz naejot rhaenagon ao_ \- It is good to meet you.

_Ao ȳdragon Valyrīha?_ \- You speak Valyrian?

_Issa ñuha muña ēngos_ \- It is my mother tongue.

_Iōragon bē_ \- Stand up!

_Vali, bisa iksis rhaenys hen Targārien Lentor, mandia naejot se dāria_ \- Men, this is Rhaenys of House Targaryen, sister to the Queen

Dothraki 

_Naqis inavva -_ Little sister

_Me ajjin davra tat tihat yer, gaezo_ \- It is good to see you, brother


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, love ad gratitude to the best beta & enabler ever: Whedonista93
> 
> And for those of you who can spot the InuYasha reference, you get a cookie 🍪

Irri wakes Rhaenys at dawn with a gentle shake of her shoulder. “Come, _shekh sajak,_ ” she says. “ _Mae-ver_ say time to dress.”

Rhaenys sits up with a groan, rubbing her tired eyes. She hopes they aren’t red. She isn’t sure how long she cried last night. She knows it was a while, though she was able to keep mostly quiet by stuffing her fist in her mouth.

Irri settles behind her with a wooden comb carved with running horses. Rhaenys tilts her head back, enjoying the feel of the comb in her long black hair. Her eyelids flutter, tension easing.

“How you like hair today?” Irri asks.

Rhaenys hums, relaxed and comfortable sitting before Irri’s short stool. “Dothraki braids,” she answers easily. She is representing her sister, a Dothraki _Khaleesi_. Were it possible, Rhaenys would want a Valyrian style but that knowledge was lost with the Doom. The loyalty of Daenerys’ khalasar saved them when Khal Drogo died. She will honor them.

Irri’s hands are gentle but sure, twining her hair into thin and thick braids, pulled away from her face to trail down her back. _I wonder what Robb will think?_

Rhaenys pushes the thought away. It doesn't matter what Robb thinks. He is to be her ally but their affair ended when he learned her name.

Lyanna steps into the tent with a smile. She holds a bundle of leather and cloth in her hands that she offers to Rhaenys. “A gift from your mother sent from Dorne,” she explains with a smile. “Jhiqui and Irri made some adjustments for you.”

With a glance at Irri to confirm her hair is done, she stands, taking the bundle from Lyanna. It’s clothes, a mix of red cloth and black leather, done in a style that is half Dothraki and half Westerosi. “Oh, Mother, it’s beautiful.”

Golden horses and dragons dance around spear-pierced suns on a knee-length, Dornish style red tunic with long, loose sleeves and a high collar that dips into a rather unnecessary, but flattering, neckline. A Dothraki style black leather belt patterned like scales holds the tunic tight, the band almost as wide as her forearm with a brass flaming sun at the center. The tunic is slit up the sides, allowing for her to ride with ease, black breeches covering her legs, ends tucked into black boots decorated by more bronze suns.

As Rhaenys pulls the outfit on, Lyanna also produces a leather sword belt, Dark Sister already hanging in her sheath, bracers for her forearms, and the signet ring once worn by Rhaella Targaryen.

Rhaenys freezes at the sight of the ring, left bracer only half tied. “Wolf-Mother -”

Lyanna smiles. “Dany insisted,” she says, holding it out. 

The ring is heavy silver, made for the pale complexion of a Targaryen, but Rhaenys takes it reverently. She remembers her grandmother in flashes, but it is the ring she remembers best. She remembers stone floor and her mother crying silently and her grandmother handing her ring to Rhaenys to distract her from her own tears. It worked, Rhaenys’ tears subsiding as she ran her tiny hands over the silver surface.

The ring glints in the dawn light as she tilts it toward the tent’s entrance, the stylized R twined with the three-headed Targaryen dragon. Rhaenys slips it onto her right ring finger, running her forefinger across Rhaella’s personal crest with a smile. 

Rhaella Targaryen was good and kind. It gives Rhaenys comfort to have this reminder of a good woman with her.

“There,” Irri says, tugging the tunic’s collar a little straighter. “You ready.”

Rhaenys blinks, brought abruptly back from her memories. “Oh, thank you, Irri.”

Irri shoos her away, turning to collect their bedrolls and finish packing their tent. 

“Come,” Lyanna says. “The Unsullied are breaking down the camp. I assume you will be riding that monster of a horse.”

Rhaenys smiles. “Be nice to Virzeth. He’s a very good horse.”

“He’s a terror,” Lyanna informs her as they step outside. 

The fire from the night before is doused, the firepit dismantled. Two of the three tents are already dismantled, Timpa directing his men to pack them away into three wagons, one of which she recognizes as her own, though a large draft horse is hitched to the tracers. 

Virzeth waits for her impatiently, reins tied to a low hanging tree branch far away from the others. Rhaenys snorts. Of course her horse cannot be left where he might bite an unsuspecting passerby. 

“Don’t know why you keep horse,” Kovarro’s cheerful tenor voice says behind her.

“Because he makes me laugh,” Rhaenys answers with a smile, going to the large chestnut. 

Virzeth watches her with large, intelligent brown eyes. She rubs his forehead and his ears flick back and forth. “Ready to be a warhorse again?” she asks.

“Need saddle if warhorse,” Kovarro says.

Rhaenys turns to him. He holds the Dothraki saddle she had tucked away in her wagon. She grins, taking the large blanket from him first. It’s made of a long brown cloth with black tassels on the edges. The saddle lacks the large pommel of Westerosi saddles which are made for knights in heavy armour that fight lancers and other heavy weapons wielders. By contrast, the pride of the Dothraki khalasars are the archers, with trick riding considered the best skill a bloodrider can have.

Rhaenys’ archery is passable but she is an excellent trick rider and she missed showing off her skill. Virzeth’s head comes up when she places the saddle on his back, ears pricking forward, suddenly alert. 

Rhaenys laughs. “Yes, I knew you would like this.” He stamps his hoof and almost shoves his face into the bridle. 

Once she is done, Kovarro inspects her work. He doesn’t find fault, as she knew he wouldn’t, but she enjoys that he cares enough to ensure she saddled Virzeth correctly.

Kovarro pats Virzeth’s neck then dodges back when his teeth almost chomps down on his arm. “ _Ale vroz_ ,” he tells the stallion. 

Virzeth snorts, shaking his head. 

“Are you two done?” she asks.

“ _Khaleesi-mai_ say we go now.”

Rhaenys nods, steeling herself. Her thumb finds the band of her grandmother’s ring. “Right.” She unties Virzeth’s reins from the tree and leads him to the center of clearing where Lyanna waits with one of the great gray horses common in The North. Rhaenys forces away the memory of Robb sitting astride a similar horse.

Behind Lyanna, the Unsullied stand in their squads, awaiting their marching orders. Two of them sit in the wagons behind the soldiers, Irri taking the reins of the third that once belonged to Talisa the Volantene Healer. She nods at Rhaenys when she catches the older woman looking at her. 

Rhaenys smiles then turns to Lyanna. “Are we ready, Wolf-Mother?”

Lyanna nods. “We are.”

Together, mother and daughter swing into their saddles, sitting sure and straight backed like the shieldmaidens of old. Lyanna looks back to assess the Unsullied. “We are ready?”

“Ready!” Timpa calls, standing at the head of the column, four men abreast, spears held straight and black helms masking their faces. 

Lyanna raises her arm and brings it down in a divisive chop. “Move out!”

Rhaenys nudges Virzeth into an easy walk, the sound of the Unsullied’s booted feet thumping strongly along the packed earth behind her. For a moment, Rhaenys wonders what they look like, two women at the head of twenty soldiers, more hidden on ships in the bay. 

Kovarro trots his dun mare into place beside Rhaenys, flashing her a grin. In his hand he holds a standard, a black flag painted with a white laughing tree.

“She has you carrying her flag?” Rhaenys asks.

Kovarro shrugs. “Is good for staying close.”

Rhaenys frowns. “Why do you need to stay close?”

Kovarro considers her with serious dark eyes. “I protect _Khaleesi-mai_ and you, _naqis inavva_.”

Rhaenys’ heart warms considerably. If she must face Robb today and pretend that she is alright, she feels considerably better with Kovarro at her side. 

The ride back to Riverrun seems to take considerably longer than she knows it should. Lyanna guides them down the dirt path that becomes a road around midmorning. The scent of the cookfires and sound of a large camp filter through the trees. 

Rhaenys breathes deep. She can pretend to be unaffected. She can pretend to be cold. She can pretend her interest in The North and it’s king are mercenary. She can pretend. She can pretend. She can pretend…

Northmen turn at the sound of their column. They stand slowly, staring. Lyanna lifts her chin high and urges her horse forward. A familiar, pale face catches Rhaenys’ eye. Healer Olya stares up at her as she rides past. Rhaenys refuses to think on what her expression could mean.

Bannermen step into their path before the bridge to Riverrun. “Halt!”

Rhaenys brings Virzeth up. Lyanna allows her mount a few more steps, looking down on the men, face cold, gray eyes calculating. “We have come to speak with your king,” she says clearly. “He is expecting us.”

The soldier glances at Rhaenys. She recognizes him from the Healers’ tents, a riverman visiting his best friend after the man almost died with a wound to his chest. 

The clatter of hooves echo from Riverrun. Olyvar Frey rides across the Riverrun bridge. “His Grace says to let them pass,” he calls.

Beside Rhaenys, Kovarro snorts. “He ride like goat man.”

Rhaenys’ mouth twitches. “ _Yer hash vo ojil_ ,” she mutters. Olyvar is a good lad, but he is no horseman. 

Olyvar’s dark eyes sweep over Lyanna, Rhaenys, Kovarro and the Unsullied - he jerks back to Rhaenys. “Healer Talisa?”

“Thank you for coming to greet us, Olyvar,” Rhaenys answers, hoping to belay his curiosity. “If you would please take us to His Grace?”

Olyvar hesitates only a moment then nods, turning his horse and leading them across the bridge. Rhaenys has crossed this stone bridge many times, but never like this. Bannermen silently stare at her, distrust in every face. When they enter Riverrun’s courtyard. bannermen line the ramparts, knights forming a half circle along the walls. Every northman and riverman rest hands on sword hilts and longbows.

Lyanna dismounts. Rhaenys hesitates. She glances at Kovarro. Her Dothraki friend is cheerful and friendly, but still Dothraki. He is just as likely to gut a man as say hello.

Irri appears between Kovarro and Rhaenys’ horses. “I keep from fighting,” she promises. “Give Virzeth.”

Kovarro rolls his eyes at her. “Too easy beat.”

Rhaenys shakes her head. “Do not start any fights,” she orders as she dismounts. “Irri, if he starts anything, tell Timpa to -”

“Sit him?” Irri suggests brightly, looking far too happy with that solution.

“Yes. Tell Timpa to sit on him.”

She leaves Kovarro scowling petulantly at Irri and follows Lyanna inside the ancient river fortress. Inside RIverrun, northmen and rivermen surround Rhaenys. She has been in The North for almost a year and never has she felt so unsure. 

But her uncertainty is nothing compared to Lyanna. Her Wolf-Mother's lips turn down, eyes over bright. Lyanna is adept at concealing her thoughts behind a facade of indifference. That Rhaenys can see something is wrong at all speaks volumes to the depth of her emotions. 

Rhaenys suppresses the urge to reach out for her Wolf-Mother's hand, to comfort herself or Lyanna she isn't sure. Lyanna's face is pale and thinner than she remembers. Rhaenys suddenly wonders if being back in Westeros was truly the right decision for Lyanna. She cannot imagine what her Wolf-Mother must be thinking, knowing there is a son she left behind that she cannot see because she must instead wage war on behalf of a daughter she raised. 

Olyvar leads them to a set of great doors flanked by soldiers in rivermen armour. They eye Rhaenys and her Wolf-Mother but do not hesitate when Olyvar gives them a sharp nod. The doors open on creaking hinges and Olyvar leads them through.

Rhaenys almost trips over her own feet. Robb stands at the far end of the hall, pale face as smooth as marble even as his eyes burn. Were he a dragon, Rhaenys would fear he would breathe fire when his gaze meets hers. Hastily, she drops her eyes to the flagstone floor, swallowing hard. It’s cowardly, she knows, but she cannot bear to see his anger.

Lyanna stops ten feet from Robb and his Small Council and Rhaenys stops just behind her, thumb automatically rubbing against her grandmother’s ring. 

“King Stark of the North and Riverlands, greetings,” Lyanna says, voice ringing and clear. “Thank you for your most gracious hospitality.”

“We are happy to welcome you to Riverrun, Lady Targaryen,” Robb replies and Rhaenys breathes slowly and carefully through her nose.

Beside Robb, a man Rhaenys doesn’t recognize steps forward. He’s tall, with sandy brown hair and brown eyes that seem transfixed by Lyanna’s face. “Lady Lyanna?”

Lyanna smiles at the man. “Ser Howland Reed. It is good to see you alive and well.”

Ser Howland Reed nods but he does not bow, keeping wary eyes on Lyanna, shifting slightly, his hand on the pommel of his sword. Rhaenys doesn’t like his nearness to her Wolf-Mother so she watches him, carefully keeping her eyes away from the King in the North. 

“Well that’s fucking great,” the tall man on Robb’s right hand snarls. 

Rhaenys’ eyes flash dangerously and she eyes the man she knows as the Blackfish, Lady Catelyn’s uncle. A dangerous opponent and a man Rhaenys had hoped to like. The way he glares at her Wolf-Mother makes that unlikely.

“Good to see you as well, Lord Tully.”

“Why are you here?” demands the shorter Lord Edmure Tully.

Rhaenys bites her tongue and hopes her feelings do not show on her face; she is not as good at concealing her thoughts as Lyanna, who smiles blandly in the face of House Tully’s aggression. 

“We are here to offer an alliance to His Grace,” Lyanna answers, smiling sweetly. 

“An alliance with who?”

Rhaenys’ eyes flick involuntarily to Robb. He intends to make Lyanna repeat her offer. He watches his aunt with a cool detachment Rhaenys has never seen before. Perhaps it is a Stark trait.

Lyanna seems to understand his intention as well. “I come on behalf of House Targaryen and Daenerys Stormborn, First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of the Andals and the Freed Cities, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons.”

“Mother of Dragons?” the Blackfish snorts. The other men of the Small Council exchange amused looks. 

Rhaenys bares her teeth. “Yes,” she says, cutting through their mirth as a knife, “Mother of Dragons. Three, to be precise.”

Finally, finally Robb looks at her, blue eyes piercing and so cold they burn. “Three dragons?”

“Aye,” Lyanna says. “Queen Daenerys brings dragons to our alliance and an army. All she asks is that you help her reclaim the Iron Throne that is her birthright.”

“And what do we get out of this ‘alliance’?” Robb asks. 

“Queen Daenerys cedes all claims to the Riverlands and The North.”

Rhaenys watches the face of the lords freeze, then they all turn to each other, glances and looks speaking volumes. None expected for the Targaryens to give up any of the Seven Kingdoms away, least of all the prosperous Riverlands and extensive North. 

“We will consider House Targaryen’s offer,” Robb announces, “in the meantime, We invite you to join us. We are departing for The Twins tomorrow for a meeting with our allies, House Frey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Dothraki Translations,**  
>  _shekh sajak_ \- sun rider  
>  _Mae-ver_ \- she-wolf  
>  _Khaleesi_ \- queen  
>  _Ale vroz_ \- Too slow  
>  _Khalessi-mai_ \- queen mother  
>  _naqis inavva_ \- little sister  
>  _Yer hash vo ojil_ \- You are not wrong


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was heavily inspired by Becky_Blue_Eyes' _Come My Darling, Homeward Bound_. Seriously, y'all should go read it. This chapter is also kinda the whole reason I wrote _Feverbright_ so what happens next is anybody’s guess. 🤷♀️

“I don’t suppose you know why His Grace is travelling to The Twins?”

Rhaenys turns to her Wolf-Mother, sitting tall and proud astride her great gray horse. They ride separately from Robb Stark’s entourage, the Unsullied marching in formation behind. Kovarro rides near the wagons, keeping an eye on Irri, who glares fiercely when any Westerosi comes too close. 

“I don’t know Wolf-Mother.”

Lyanna’s eyebrow rises. “You didn’t hear anything?”

Rhaenys forces a shrug. “Maybe the King is going to fulfill his promise of marriage.”

Lyanna studies her with gray eyes. 

“It’s because there were messengers from the Freys yesterday.” 

Rhaenys jumps, looking around. Healer Olya walks alongside Virzeth, the irritable gelding only flicking his ears at her. Her pale hair is held back in a loose braid and her dark eyes watch Rhaenys curiously but her face shows no feelings of betrayal or distrust. Instead, she smiles, as friendly as ever. 

On Rhaenys’ other side, Lyanna leans forward, peering at Rhaenys’ shadow. “Little sun, who is your friend?”

“Healer Olya, Wolf-Mother,” Rhaenys answers, still watching the other woman. “She - we are - were…”

“We’re friends,” Healer Olya says, “you can call me Olya, my Lady.”

Relief unclenches the knot in Rhaenys’ chest. Undoubtedly, Olya was asked to watch her and Lyanna, but she cannot begrudge Robb for sending a spy, and it is good to see a friendly, smiling face. 

“What did the Freys want?” Rhaenys asks. 

Olya shrugs. “Rumor is, the Freys are demanding His Grace uphold his end of the bargain for the bridge and marry one of Lord Frey’s daughters.”

Rhaenys’ heart sinks like lead and she swallows hard. She will not cry. She knew this was coming. They ended when she spoke her true name and with those words she lost any chance of a happily ever after. Still, knowing she rides to the wedding of the man she loves hurts more than a dagger to her heart. 

“But,” Olya sing-songs with a smile, “I heard His Grace intends to force a renegotiation. Something about The Twins not being as necessary as they were and the original alliance being made under duress.”

An excited thrill races up her spine, but Rhaenys can’t smile. So much can still go wrong. 

“You are quite chatty and knowing,” Lyanna comments, eyeing Olya. “I thought the Healers here were Silent Sisters.”

Olya smiles. “Some of us are, my lady, but I am not. My mother always threatened to send me to the Sisters because I wouldn’t be quiet but eventually she got me apprenticed to a Healer in Maidenpool.”

“And that’s where you learned your craft?” Rhaenys asks curiously. For all the time she has spent with Olya, she realizes she never really learned anything about the other woman beyond her name. 

Olya nods. “Aye, my lady, Maidenpool, then I travelled around the Riverlands. What of you? Where have you been?”

She asks with such guileless brown eyes that Rhaenys almost finds herself answering. Only Lyanna’s voice stops her. “We’ve gone a great many places but for me my favorite place is here.”

Rhaenys curses internally. _Damnit_. How could she have allowed herself to be distracted? She may no longer be a covert spy but still she must hide. Everything she says, everything she does, will be reported now. Even a simple smile may lead to thoughts of weakness in her House.

She sits straighter, breathing deeply. She is Rhaenys of House Targaryen. She has spent her life working to place a Dragon on the Iron Throne. She was raised to believe Daenerys is the Rightful Queen of Westeros. She is in the game now, even more than before. Even in her sorrow, she cannot lose sight of their goal.

“Do you know who else will be at The Twins?” Lyanna asks.

“House Frey, of course,” Olya answers, “but Lord Bolton is riding to meet us at The Twins, too.”

Rhaenys scowls. Lord Bolton who watched Healer Talisa, who saw more than she wished. If Lord Bolton died in this war, Rhaenys would not let fall a single tear. 

“That pit viper,” Lyanna says, disdain in her every word, “the Lords of the Dreadfort. I had hoped to never see their flayed man again.”

“Is it true you are of House Stark?” Olya asks, eyeing Lyanna. “That you’re Lady Lyanna whose marriage sparked Robert’s Rebellion?”

“You know quite a bit for a Healer,” Rhaenys comments. 

Olya shrugs smiling again, almost girlish and innocent. “My mother was the housekeeper for House Mooten. I learned a great deal from listening at doors.”

Rhaenys can’t help but laugh. Listening at doors, combined with the education of a Lesser House and her own innate curiosity, would give Olya her aptitude for knowing so many things. 

The road to The Twins winds through lush forest that fades to marshland. For two days Rhaenys keeps from sight, staying to the rear of King Stark's column even as her Wolf-Mother rides with her nephew and his generals at the front. Kovarro complains that he is unable to keep an eye on both of them if they are separated but Rhaenys cannot bring herself to face the King in the North. Her insides still quake at the memory of his blue eyes. Blue eyes she loves, but the rage in them…

Rhaenys furiously wipes away the single tear from her cheek.

"You cry, _shekh sajak,_ " Irri says softly.

Rhaenys shakes her head, braids swinging across her back. She smiles at her Dothraki friend driving in the wagon beside her. "No, not today, _inavva._ "

Irri gives her a sad smile and grips her hand when they stop for the night. Only safe in the shadows of her tent does Rhaenys permit the facade to crumple as she buries her face in her arms and forces away tears. Then, as the sun rises, she takes the strength of a new day into her heart, pushing it all aside as she prepares to meet House Frey.

The Twins is aptly named for the pair of near-identical towers on either end of a fortified bridge spanning the Green River Fork of the Trident. Fashioned of gray stone stained green by time, the towers rise high above Rhaenys' head and she tries to keep the resentment at bay. Were it not for The Twins and House Frey to whom they belong, she might be in the midst of planning her own wedding, a necessary bond to cement the alliance between the King in the North and House Targaryen, but a bond she desires regardless of political advantages. 

Still, Olya did say they ride for a renegotiation, not a wedding. Of course, if House Frey cuts off supplies from The North as they threaten, what can the King do but proceed with the marriage? _Fucking bridge._

Lyanna's offer to take The Twins springs to mind as she and Irri arrange their tent on the banks of the river. By right of being a noble ally of King Stark, Rhaenys and her Wolf-Mother could take rooms in the keep, but with one look between them they silently agreed they much prefer being as far from the ugly, toothless face of Lord Walder Frey as possible. Besides, both of them enjoy spending time with their Unsullied. Timpa is an excellent flutist and Marselen, one of the captains, has a lovely speaking voice that tells beautifully sad stories. 

Rhaenys intends to spend her first night at The Twins listening to Marselen tell fairy tales while Timpa plays, possibly even play dice with a few of the other men while forcing herself to think on anything else but what is being discussed in the castle, but Lyanna will have none of it.

"You'd best change into a dress, little sun," she says, stepping into the tent she, Rhaenys and Irri share.

Rhaenys blinks at her. "Wolf-Mother, I-"

"None of that," Lyanna says briskly, crossing to a trunk in the corner and pulling out a flattering blue-gray dress. "You'll not be sulking tonight. Your friend the Healer said the King isn't completely committed to the marriage. Tonight we show him what he has to gain by choosing you as his queen."

Rhaenys catches the dress Lyanna tosses her way, eyeing the older woman curiously. "Wolf-Mother," she says slowly, "why are you so eager to thwart the King's marriage?"

Lyanna raises an eyebrow at her. "Can I not simply wish to see my eldest daughter happy?"

Rhaenys rolls her eyes. "It's not your nature, Wolf-Mother. You always have layers to every action you take."

Lyanna sighs, coming over to help Irri begin removing Rhaenys' clothes. "In this instance, the majority of my motivation is your happiness," she says, setting Rhaenys' belt aside.

"And what is the rest?"

Lyanna shrugs. "We gave up the Riverlands because they had already sided with The North and any attempt to take them back would result in more war. However, we cannot afford to lose any more of the kingdoms, not if we want the Iron Throne to mean something."

Rhaenys bends so Irri can pull the dress over her head, thinking hard. "How does my marrying Robb keep us from losing more kingdoms?"

"It's a gamble," Lyanna explains patiently, tying the laces before settling a tooled leather belt around her midriff, cinching it to emphasize Rhaenys' slim waist. "As King Stark's wife you would have influence, mostly to guide him away from taking more than we are willing to give."

Rhaenys frowns, shifting the belt so it rests more comfortably above her hips. "I don't think there's reason for that, Wolf-Mother. Robb doesn't want the Iron Throne. He only wants for The North to be left alone."

Lyanna steps around to face her, Stark gray eyes meeting Targaryen purple. "I think that's the first time you've referred to him by name since telling him the truth."

Heat blossoms across Rhaenys' cheeks and she quickly turns away. "Can we just get this done?"

Lyanna gives her a small smile. "Of course.”

Kovarro waits outside the tent. “You go eat?” he asks.

Rhaenys nods. “Yes. What will you do?”

He glances at Irri who smiles. “I want see _vaer_.”

Rhaenys raises an eyebrow. “You want to see Grey Wind?”

Irri nods. “Yes. Beautiful _vaer_.”

“Kovarro, if you would go with her?” Lyanna requests. 

The big Dothraki nods and he follows Irri obediently through the deepening twilight. Rhaenys watches them curiously. “Should we be concerned he’ll start a fight?”

Lyanna shakes her head. “Not with Irri around. He’s grown rather...protective of her.”

“Really now?” Rhaenys loops arms with Lyanna as they stroll down the riverbank. She carefully ignores the northmen and rivermen whose eyes bore into her back. 

Guards wearing the blue and silver of House Frey flank the gate to the inner keep. They glare but do not attempt to stop Lyanna and Rhaenys from entering the tower. The fragrant scents of seasoned meat, warm bread, and roasted things drifts on the air, leading them to the main hall. 

Torches burn in the wall sconces, illuminating the long hall lined with long tables. At the far end, Lord Frey already sat at the center of the dais, ugly with greasy gray-brown hair, skin spotted with age and frail shoulders hunched. If Rhaenys imagined a weasel in human form, it would look like Lord Frey. 

His tiny eyes catch Lyanna and Rhaenys and slide over them. Rhaenys is eternally grateful Robb did not tell the old man about House Targaryen’s offer of alliance, not yet at least. 

“Where shall we sit, little sun?” Lyanna asks.

“May I escort you to your seats, my Lady?”

Lord Bolton’s cold voice oozes over Rhaenys and her shoulders tense instinctively. Lyanna turns, bland smile across her face. “Lord Bolton,” she greets the taller man, “it’s been far too long.”

Rhaenys can’t bring herself to smile as her Wolf-Mother does in the face of Lord Bolton’s cold black eyes, but she can conceal her surprise that Lyanna recognizes the Lord of the Dreadfort. Then again, Lyanna grew as the scion of House Stark, House Bolton’s liege lords. 

“So the rumors are true,” Lord Bolton says, bowing shallowly. “I am honored to see you alive and well, my Lady. Please, allow me to escort you to your seats.”

Lyanna takes his arm and Rhaenys follows, gut churning at the sight of her Wolf-Mother’s hand on Lord’ Bolton’s black-clad arm. Given her druthers, Rhaenys would druther Lord Bolton be on the other side of the world than making polite conversation with her mother, let alone being Robb’s most trusted general.

“I hear you secured Harrenhal?” Lyanna says.

“Yes,” Lord Bolton answers. “A strategic position for His Grace.”

“Really? I had thought it too far south to be of use.”

"It has its uses," he says with a viper's smile, "but let us not speak of the war tonight. Lord Frey has prepared this delicious feast to welcome his King. We will leave all serious discussion for tomorrow."

Lyanna nods. "Of course, Lord Bolton. It was lovely to remake your aquaintance."

Lord Bolton stops at a table halfway up the hall. "My ladies, your seats for the evening. Enjoy your meal."

Lyanna watches his retreating back, expression unreadable. 

Rhaenys leans toward her. "What is it, Wolf-Mother?"

Lyanna purses her lips. "Possibly nothing."

"It is rarely nothing," Rhaenys reminds her, remembering more than once when Lyanna's almost preternatural instincts saved their lives.

"I do not like how many men the Freys and Boltons have brought," she says quietly. "I've instructed Timpa to be on his guard."

Rhaenys frowns uneasily. "What are you thinking, Wolf-Mother?"

Lyanna shrugs. "I'm probably overreacting. Enjoy the feast and, don't look now, but the King in the North just entered and he seems to be looking for someone."

Her stomach rolls. She grabs the nearest cup and gulps down the wine, forcing back the anxiety-induced nausea. _Oh gods._ She can't do this. She can't face him again.

"Breathe," Lyanna orders, "and sit up straight. You are in love with this man. Let him know."

"He will think me a fake," Rhaenys protests weakly even as she desperately wishes to go to him, to at least turn towards him and drink the sight of him in.

"Whether he think you false or not does not matter," Lyanna hisses. "Right now he is yet unmarried. Let him know that, though his feelings may have changed, you remain faithful." Lyanna's hand grips her knee below the table. Under the guise of facing Rhaenys, she watches the hall's door from the corner of her eye. "He's seen you."

Rhaenys freezes then, unbidden she starts to turn.

"No," Lyanna orders, "not yet. He's making his way up the aisle...He keeps glancing at you...okay, now."

Rhaenys turns, attempting control but her braids swing too fast with the movement for nonchalance. It doesn't matter, because for the first time in two days she lays eyes on Robb Stark.

He stands tall and proud, wearing a black cape and armor marked with the Stark direwolf. More now than ever before his auburn hair seems to blaze, bright against his pale skin. But not even his hair can outshine his eyes. They burn full of emotions Rhaenys cant understand and yet he does not look away from her. He stands in the aisle, ostensibly listening to his mother, but his attention is wholly fixed on _her._

Hope soars in her heart. There is still time. House Targaryen is a far better alliance than some Lesser House of the Rivers. He can still choose her.

"King Stark," Lord Frey calls down from the high table, "welcome to The Twins."

Robb turns, bowing to the ancient weasel. "It is an honor to be here, my Lord." 

Amidst all these smoothly spoken rivermen, Robb's warm Northern burr sends a shiver down Rhaenys' spine. She remembers the way his voice caressed her name, spoke to her with such love and care.

"So much honor," the old man laughs. "We thought we'd honor you with a feast and some or finest musicians."

He waves his hand and a haunting tune floats from the minstrels' gallery. It's beautiful but heartbreaking. Rhaenys frowns. It's not exactly an appropriate piece for a welcome feast. Beside her, Lyanna stiffens.

Rhaenys turns to her. "Mother," she asks, "what is it?"

But Lyanna doesn't hear. Slowly, gray eyes suddenly wary, she scans the hall. At a far table, Lady Catelyn also stands, also scans the room. Rhaenys catches the glint of a knife in the older woman's hand. Dreads seeps into her stomach. 

The minstrels reach a crescendo - someone grabs her shoulder, yanks her back almost off her seat.

Searing pain slices her stomach. Screams fill her ears. She gasps. A knife protrudes from her gut. She grabs at it desperately, yanking it free and covering the hole with her hand. The fire comes to her call and the bleeding stops. The stench of burned skin fills the air.

All around the great hall of The Twins is chaos, men fighting desperately for their lives as Frey and Bolton soldiers turn on their fellows. At her side, Lyanna fights off a Frey man, slashing his throat with her table knife. Rhaenys searches wildly for Robb.

He stands in the aisle between the long tables. The bolt of a crossbow pierces his chest. He stumbles, sways, falls.

Rhaenys screams, inhuman, and a draconic roar rips from her throat, drowning the shouts of men, reverberating, deafening. It goes on and on without end until it is all anyone can hear. Fire leaps from braziers, showers down from torches, pours like rain from the chandeliers. The rage of an ancient god courses through Rhaenys' veins and she roars her vengeance, her Fire and Blood.

The shouts of men turn to high pierced shrieks of pain and fear. 

Rhaenys stumbles to her feet, clutching her stomach. The knifeman who thought to kill her lunges. She grabs him and he falls back, dead, face a smoking, oozing ruin.

Her feet slip on the stone floor wet with scarlett blood. She falls to her knees at Robb's side. Lord Bolton takes aim with his crossbow - fire consumes him in a roaring pillar.

The flames devour where they land, feeding on her rage and pain. Rhaenys does not see the destruction and death. All she knows is Robb's pale face. She pulls the bolt from his chest, presses her hands to the wound. His shirt smokes. 

_He can't die. I can't let him die. Please. Please._

Her vision darkens. _No. Please. I must save him._

The hole beneath her hand oozes blood. _Burn. Cauterize. Please._

Shadows fall as her body gives out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, y'all, usually I'd blame this level of mean on my fabulous beta, Whedonista93, but I have to be honest: this one was all me. Enjoy! 😁
> 
>  **Dothraki**  
>  _shekh sajak_ \- sun rider  
>  _inavva_ \- sister


	17. Chapter 17

Rhaenys wakes screaming, the sound like a dying animal. Shadows fill her eyes and she scrambles, clawing for something, anything to hold. Her hands catch the edge of the bed. Something moves in the dark. Hands reach for her.

She grabs at them. Someone shouts. Fire leaps to life in the lamp on the bedside table. The man falls back. The bracers on his forearms smoke where burns like hands mark the leather.

She leaps from the bed, stumbling for the door. It's unlocked. She yanks it open, careening into the stone hall. The flames leap in the sconces along the wall. She doesn't notice. 

_Robb. Where's Robb?_

A woman runs around the corner and Rhaenys recognizes her. "Mother!" She cries but her voice is nothing more than a cracked whisper.

Lyanna reaches her. Rhaenys trips, knees buckling.

"I've got you," Lyanna promises, catching her, arms wrapping around Rhaenys as if she is a little girl again. "I'm here. I've got you."

Rhaenys buries her face in Lyanna's shoulder, dry sobs wracking her whole body. _He's dead_ , she wants to say. _They killed him. He's dead._

She wakes again, curled on her side. Lyanna peers down at her. Tears fill Rhaenys's eyes. "They killed him," she cries, burying her face in the bedclothes. "They killed him."

She shakes with the force of her sobs, the sheets drenched with tears. A soft, gentle hand runs through her hair, the bed dipping beneath her. "Be still, my love," a deep voice rumbles in a Northman's burr. "I'm here."

Rhaenys sobs. _A cruel dream._ She remembers blood beneath her fingers, pouring in an unending river. The smell of scorched flesh filling her nose.

"Please, don't cry. I'm here. You saved me. Please, look at me."

"No," Rhaenys whimpers into her pillow. "No, I won't survive. If it's not true I won't - I can't -" The words strangle in her throat.

"It's true, dear heart," Lyanna soothes. "It's true. You saved him."

Rhaenys struggles to breath, finally opening her eyes. She will throw herself from a tower, she thinks, just as Ashara Dayne did, if Robb is dead. She could survive him marrying another, could even survive him loving another. She cannot survive his death.

Tully blue meets her eyes and Rhaenys gasps, launching herself at the man sitting in her bed.

Robb Stark catches her with open arms and she buries her face in his chest. "See," he says thickly, stroking her black hair, "I am alive because you saved me."

She sobs but there are no more tears left in her. All she can do is hold to Robb as tight as her arms will allow.

When she finally, finally pulls away, Robb does not let her go far, holding her close, smiling at her as if she is the sun. "I was so worried for you," he whispers, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

Rhaenys tries to speak but pain like knives rakes her throat. She tries to swallow desperately but her mouth is a desert.

"Here," Lyanna offers a cup of water and Rhaenys drinks greedily. The water helps, but only so much. 

"What happened?" She croaks.

"You burned down The Twins," Robb answers, blue eyes wide in wonder. 

Lyanna gives him a sharp look, resettling on her seat beside Rhaenys's bed. "The Boltons and Freys betrayed us," she says. "They led the Karstarks, Goodbrooks and Haighs against us, assisted by Lannister soldiers."

"They would have had us, too, if not for you and the Unsullied," Robb adds. "What happened?"

Rhaenys shakes her head. "I - I don't know. The man stabbed me and -"

"You were stabbed?" Robb jerks back, anxiously searching her body. 

"She's alright," Lyanna reassures him. "She cauterized her wound just as she did yours."

"But _how_?" Robb presses, smoothing back Rhaenys' hair. She must look a fright but she doesn't care. She basks in the warmth of his gaze, taking in the light of his beautiful blue eyes.

"Rhaenys is a Fire Dancer," Lyanna answers, seeing her daughter is too caught in Robb's eyes to speak. 

Robb blinks, startled from staring at Rhaenys. He looks to his aunt. "A what?"

Rhaenys flushes. "A Fire Dancer," she repeats. "It's old Valyrian magic. I learned it on the streets of Pentos."

"Had we known what she was doing we would have stopped it," Lyanna comments ruefully.

Robb huffs a laugh. "I'm rather glad you didn't." He looks to Rhaenys. "Your Fire Dancing saved all our lives."

Rhaenys frowns. "It isn't supposed to work like that," she says. "It's not supposed to be death fire. It comes from the sun that gives life to all."

"The Freys broke guesting law," Lyanna suggests. "That is a deep and ancient magic. Perhaps in the breaking they enraged your sun god."

Rhaenys considers. "Maybe..."

"Well," Robb says, "I don't care why it happened like it did, only that we are alive."

Rhaenys’ purple eyes flick to Lyanna, a sudden fear spiking her pulse. “Are we all alive?”

Lyanna nods, smiling gently. “Yes. We did not lose a single Unsullied and our Irri and Kovarro have a new friend in that direwolf.”

Rhaenys blinks. “What?”

Robb strokes her hair. “Frey men went to kill Grey Wind,” he says, “but your Dothraki were there. Killed them before they could raise their crossbows. My wolf hasn’t left their sides in two days. I think - Irri, you said her name was? - I think she’s enjoying the attention.”

A hysterical, relieved giggle bubbles from Rhaenys’ lungs.

Someone knocks at the door and Lyanna answers. Lady Catelyn stands in the hall, hands folded before her, blue eyes examining the small chamber critically. She nods to Lyanna, the friendliest Rhaenys has seen her since her Wolf-Mother arrived. 

“Robb, Edmure and Uncle Brynden are here,” she says, expression carefully not betraying her thoughts about Robb’s position on Rhaenys’ sickbed. 

He glances at Rhaenys but smiles, licking her lips. “I”m fine. You have more important things to attend to than me.”

He frowns. “No,” he whispers as he gently presses a kiss to her head, “I don’t.” But he stands and, with a final squeeze of her hand, leaves. 

Lyanna’s eyebrows rise and her gray eyes flick between Rhaenys and where Robb disappeared. The look on her face is clear: _progress._

Rhaenys sits back in her bed with a sigh. Her body aches. She knows she is a conduit for the sun god’s magic but she never channeled so much power before. It’s no wonder she slept for two days.

“Is there something else, Lady Catelyn?”

Rhaenys looks up. Catelyn Stark still stands in the doorway. “If I might have a word with Lady Rhaenys?” she says, not quite meeting Lyanna’s eyes.

Lyanna turns to Rhaenys and she nods. “It’s alright, Wolf-Mother.”

Lady Catelyn steps past Lyanna into the small chamber. Lyanna looks over her shoulder, meeting Rhaenys’ eyes. “I’ll be just outside.”

Once the door closes behind her, silence reins in the stone room. Rhaenys watches the older Stark woman. Her fingers fidget with the hem of sleeves.

“I wanted to thank you,” Lady Catelyn speaks into the silence. “Without you, we would all be dead.”

Rhaenys tilts her head. She hasn’t spent much time with Lady Catelyn since the revelation of her name, but she has thought a lot about her, about what she told her on a forest road as she wove a talisman for her children.

“It was my honor to protect you and yours, Lady Catelyn,” she says coolly, “just as it should have been your honor to protect my brother.”

What little color in Lady Catelyn’s face has drains away until she is almost as white as snow. She stands, frozen, at the foot of Rhaenys’ bed, staring at her.

Her Spear-Mother always says that Rhaenys inherited her protective nature from her father. Rhaenys isn't so sure. She's seen her mothers have a man executed for verbal threats against Viserys. Still, she surveys Lady Catelyn with detached sort of anger, as if she is nothing but a stranger. This is the woman who wanted her baby brother dead. She might be the mother of the man Rhaenys loves, but Rhaenys cannot permit such a thing to go unanswered.

“You wished my baby brother dead,” she says when the silence drags on. She might be bedridden, unable to stand for fear of falling, but there is power in her voice, ringing clear and strong.

“I didn't - I didn't know,” Lady Catelyn protests. 

“No matter,” Rhaenys dismisses her. “From now on, you will treat him as the prince he is. Am I understood?

“Will you tell his - Lyanna?”

For all Rhaenys believes gutting the woman would be justified, Targaryen victory is far too important. Rhaenys shakes her head. “No. You are too valuable to die and my wolf-mother would kill you if she found out.” A cold smile stretches across her face. “Take comfort, Lady Stark, in your own son. It is for him that I let you live.”

Lady Catelyn presses her lips into a thin line but she does not speak again, simply turns on her heel and leaves the bedchamber. Lyanna watches her sweep down the hall, eyebrows raised. She turns to Rhaenys. “What was that all about?”

Rhaenys shakes her head. “Lady Catelyn and I have come to an agreement.”

“About Robb?” Lyanna asks curiously.

“No, something else.” Her stomach growls and she sits up a little straighter. “Is there any food around?”

“I’ll have someone fetch some,” Lyanna answers. 

When Irri arrives with warm bread and meatpies, Olya follows her, carrying Rhaenys’ Healer’s Box.

“Glad to see you didn’t die,” Olya says cheerfully, setting the box on the table by her bed. 

Irri rolls her eyes at the Healer. “ _Shekh sajak_ not die in fire,” she informs her, offering Rhaenys the plate of steaming food. “Eat.”

Rhaenys rips into the meatpies gratefully, relishing the taste of season lamb and flaky crust. “Thank you, Irri.”

Irri smiles, settling on the edge of the bed. “I watch make so no poison.”

“You deserve a herd of horses all your own,” Rhaenys informs her friend. “I hear you saved the direwolf.”

At the bedside table, Olya opens Rhaenys’ Healers Box. “Oh, she saved the direwolf, alright,” she says, pulling out the bottle of rosewater. “Remove your nightdress. I need to change your bandages.”

Rhaenys obeys, declining help even as her arms protest movement. Someone removed her breastband and the air is cold on her chest but that’s not what is important. Bandages wrap around her stomach and Lyanna helps Olya carefully unwind them to reveal angry red skin on Rhaenys’ stomach in the rough shape of a hand. 

Olya shakes her head. “When your mother said you cauterized the wound I didn’t expect that scar. His Grace has the same mark on his chest.”

Rhaenys shrugs, too tired from the simple act of removing her shirt to explain. “What’s the diagnosis?” she asks instead.

“You’ll make it,” Olya replies, pulling out a fresh batch of linen and soaking it in rosewater, “this is just a precaution.” The wet cloth is cold on Rhaenys’ stomach and she flinches as Olya begins to wrap it around her torso. 

When she is done, Olya examines Rhaenys with a critical eye. Seeming to come to a decision, she turns to Irri and Lyanna. “Now that she’s eaten, Talis - Rhaenys needs to rest.”

Lyanna nods. “Alright but I’ll stay.”

“Me too,” Irri says fiercely. 

Rhaenys smiles, leaning back tiredly. “What about your new wolf friend?”

“He is so soft,” Irri informs her, smiling. “He like jerky and snore - _loud._ ”

Rhaenys laughs, weak and tired, but it's good to feel happy for a moment. “You’re not hurt?”

Irri shakes her head. “No. Kovarro fierce warrior. He kill many men and protect wolf."

Rhaenys reaches out and squeezes Irri's hand. _"Anha tikh tikh khezhat fin yer hash hehrt."_

Irri squeezes back. " _Anha zin glakh yer hash avik. Yer razikh anna."_

"I worried myself," Rhaenys laughs weakly.

Lyanna leans forward, brushing a strand of hair back from Rhaenys' face. "Go to sleep, my little sun. You need your rest."

Rhaenys' eyes flutter and she relaxes back into her pillows. Her bed is soft and her limbs feel like they are weighted with led. 

Lyanna's soft, lyrical voice fills the small room and Rhaenys smiles at the familiar lullaby. Comforting, gentle darkness wraps around her and she sleeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Translations**  
>  Dothraki  
>  _shekh sajak_ \- sun rider  
>  _Anha tikh tikh khezhat fin yer hash hehrt_ \- I would be sad if you were hurt  
>  _Anha zin glakh yer hash avik. Yer razikh anna._ \- I am glad you are awake. You worried me.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't realize this needed to be said yet here I am with a question: which is better, taking your brand new, still weak new-born baby on a trip running for your lives to destinations unknown where you cannot guarantee your own survival let alone your baby's, or leaving your baby with a trusted brother you know will keep your baby safe and raise your baby as his own?
> 
> In case the above question is too passive, let me reiterate my point more clearly. Stop shitting on my version of Lyanna. It's discouraging. It's infuriating. If you have opinions about Lyanna and her actions towards Jon, great. Keep it to yourself. I won't respond to them and I will delete them.
> 
> Thank you and have a nice day.

It is two more days before Rhaenys has the strength to leave her bed. In that time, Lyanna rarely leaves her side. Robb’s Small Council, now reduced to Lord Edmure Tully, the Blackfish, and Ser Howland Reed, meet in her bedchamber. 

Lady Catelyn first looked to protest the new meeting place, but clearly thought better of it. She sits in the farthest chair from Rhaenys’ bed, keeping her gaze averted. Rheanys takes silent pleasure at the woman’s obvious discomfort. The men pretend not to notice Rhaenys wears only a nightdress and robe during these meetings but she really can’t muster the strength to dress.

Instead, they focus on what is to be done. Without the support of the Boltons and their bannermen The North’s army is significantly reduced. The living Freys, mostly younger sons and the daughters, are kept in what remains of The Twins’ dungeons.

“At least they could not turn Olyvar,” Robb sighs, sitting back in his chair. He takes the place of what acts as the head of their elongated circle, opposite Rhaenys’ bed. In the bright torchlight his pale face looks drawn, purple smudges under his eyes. Olya tells Rhaenys that his wounds from the Red Feast - as people are calling the attempted slaughter of the northern army - have healed nicely and cause him no pain, but still he seems to have aged decades. 

“Aye,” Lord Edmure agrees, “a small blessing. That boy has heard too much.”

“What happened with Olyvar?” Rhaenys asks curiously.

“We found him locked in the dungeons after,” the Blackfish answers. “Him and some other Freys. Apparently he and others of his kin objected to the betrayal. Poor lad’s hands were torn to pieces, he tried so hard to escape.”

Rhaenys lets out a relieved sigh. She had wondered about the young Frey squire. He seemed too good hearted for treachery. “What will be done with him?”

Robb’s blue eyes meet hers and crinkle in the smallest smile. “He will remain my squire and, when all this is said and done, I expect I will make him Lord of the Twins.”

“An excellent reward for such faithful service,” Ser Howland says, “but how are we to finish this?”

“By including us in this meeting I assume you are accepting the Targaryen alliance?” Lyanna leans slightly forward in her chair next to Rhaenys’ bed. Her gray eyes focus on her nephew. Rhaenys wonders if Robb sees his father in Lyanna’s face. 

Robb meets her gaze steadily. “If we are to be allies,” he says, “then we must have a treaty.”

“One that formalizes the Targaryens’ relinquishing any claim to the Riverlands and The North unto perpetuity,” Lady Catelyn adds.

“A treaty signed in blood.”

Rhaenys’ eyebrows rise at Ser Howland’s suggestion. She hadn’t realized Westerosi believed in or practiced blood magic.

Robb doesn’t protest blood signatures. Lyanna nods. “It will take time, writing the treaty and sending a courier with a copy for Queen Daenerys to sign.”

“Yes,” Robb agrees, “it will take time, and to cement our alliance The North also requires a marriage.”

Rhaenys’ stomach turns over. Her hand, hidden in the folds of the blanket across her lap, clenches reflexively. Robb does not look at her but her eyes bore into him. Fear and anticipation tightens her gut.

“And who would be marrying whom?”

Gods, how can her Wolf-Mother sound so calm? 

Finally, _finally_ Robb’s blue eyes flicker towards her. It’s barely a moment but his attention sets fire to her belly and she bites her lip. 

“It’s a valuable treaty,” Lady Catelyn says, “and so requires an equally valuable marriage.”

Rhaenys bites her tongue. She does not need to mention that Robb’s last betrothal was for a bridge. Not when she’s about to get everything she wants. 

“Queen Daenerys will not accept a marriage with herself,” Lyanna responds mildly.

Rhaenys wants to scream. What is her Wolf-Mother _doing?_

The Blackfish’s face darkens. 

“You know as well as I do that we are not speaking of Daenerys Targaryen,” Lord Edmure snaps impatiently.

The fire in Rhaenys’ belly flares to an inferno. “Name of whom you speak,” she says, finally finding her voice, “and to whom you want that person wed.”

She thanks the gods her voice doesn’t shake.

Robb stands. “If I could have a moment,” he says, gaze sweeping over their small circle.

The Blackfish looks ready to speak, blue eyes sparkling wickedly, but Lady Catelyn stands, almost at the same time as Lyanna. Together, with surprising efficiency, the two women hustle the men from Rhaenys’ small bedchamber. 

Rhaenys bites her lip, forcing air into her lungs. Her hands tremble and she fists them, trying to regain control. Robb steps towards her. She straightens in her bed, watching him. 

“Rhaenys,” he breathes her name and shivers sweep across her skin. 

“Yes,” she breathes back, biting her lip.

He towers over her. A hand reaches up. His fingers gently trace down her face. Her eyes flutter closed. His touch leaves a trail of fire across her skin, bringing her to life as only he can. She leans into his touch and the space beside her dips.

Her eyes open and Robb sits before her, blue eyes searching her face. “I’m going to marry you.”

Rhaenys stiffens. “Excuse you?”

"I'm going to marry you," Robb repeats. "You are the hero of the Red Feast and I love you. The moment you are well we are finding a weirwood tree and we are getting married."

"A girl likes to be asked," Rhaenys protests, fighting a laugh.

"You're being contrary for the fun of it," Robb informs her. "Besides, I did ask."

"And I said no," Rhaenys reminds him.

"Because you thought I was going to marry the Frey girl. Obviously that didn't happen. I'm going to marry you instead."

Rhaenys raises a single imperious eyebrow. "So I'm your second choice? A consolation prize?"

Robb scowls. " _Rhaenys._ "

"Ask me again," she orders, biting her lips to keep from smiling.

Robb blinks, surprised out of his burgeoning irritation. "What?"

Rhaenys flips her sheet of thick, black hair, sitting up as straight as she is able and lifting her chin. "Ask me again."

A slow smile spreads across Robb's mouth. Wordlessly, he slips to the hard stone floor, kneeling at her side. He takes her hand in his and stares deeply into her violet eyes. "Princess Rhaenys Martell Targaryen," he says into the sudden quiet, "will you do me the honor of becoming my wife, the mother of my children, and my Queen in the North?” 

_Yes_ is on the tip of her tongue, then she remembers. Rhaenys sits back with a sigh. “Maybe.”

Robb blinks at her. “Maybe?”

Rhaenys shrugs helplessly, giddy joy evaporating. “I am at the mercy of my queen.”

Robb’s hand tightens on hers. “The same queen who is your sister?”

She nods.

“You told me about her. I cannot believe that she will deny you if you ask.”

A smile twitches the corners of her mouth. “I suspect you are right, my love, but I will not make promises I cannot keep. Not to you.” She caresses his check with gentle fingers. 

“Not anymore,” he corrects and for a moment Rhaenys recoils - then she sees the mischievous spark in his blue eyes. 

She swats at his shoulder, almost playful. “Oh, that’s mean!”

Robb laughs, deep and warm. “You have to admit, it’s a little funny.”

“No it isn’t! It broke my heart, the way you looked at me…”

“Move over.” He pokes her side and she shifts so he can stretch out on the bed next to her. His arm wraps around her shoulders and she presses into his chest. He’s warm and solid and Rhaenys never thought he would be with her like this again. 

She breathes in deep, her head against his pectoral. The only sound for a moment is the crackle of flames in the fireplace. 

“I thought I was dead.”

Rhaenys’ hand jerks, gripping the covers. His voice rumbles in her ear, reverberating in his chest. She doesn’t speak, only waits. His arm wrapped around her shoulders squeezes gently.

"I felt the bolt hit me," he taps his chest, "here."

Rhaenys blinks away tears. Her hand comes to his chest, finding the edge of a bandage beneath his shirt. Robb's fingers comb through her hair.

"I felt it and I knew I was dying," he says. "I knew I was dying and all I could think about...was you."

Rhaenys tilts up her head. Robb's blue eyes stare up at the ceiling. She waits, knowing he isn't done.

“I decided then that, before I die, I am going to marry you. You are going to be my Queen in the North.”

“Don’t I get a say in this?” she asks curiously.

“You already agreed,” Robb points out.

Rhaenys presses her face into his shoulder, hiding a grin. His fingers combing through her hair send a delicious shiver up her spine. 

“Before we marry,” he says quietly, as if coming back to reality, “we need to win.”

“Yes,” she agrees, brought back to reality from the warm fantasy of sitting around a crackling fire while red haired, dark skinned children played on the floor, “we need to win.”

“Your queen, will she truly agree to our treaty?”

“Yes, my love,” Rhaenys replies. “She wouldn’t have sent my Wolf-Mother if she didn’t wish for the treaty.”

“And the Unsullied?”

“They are strong and loyal. But," she sighs, "they are not enough. You need allies within Westeros."

"I thought we discussed this before," Robb points out, almost irritable. "There is no one from whom I can request aid."

Rhaenys sits up so Robb can see her roll her eyes. "Robb, in agreeing to the Targaryen alliance you gain allies in Dorne, and I know for a fact that my Spear-Mother is working to forge an alliance with House Tyrell."

Robb blinks at her. "House Tyrell? But, they support the Lannisters."

Rhaenys raises a single eyebrow. "Do they? Last I heard they withdrew most of their armies from King's Landing after defeating Stannis Baratheon in the Battle of Blackwater Bay. Their forces hold Highgarden and do little else."

Robb straightens in the bed. "How is it you know so much?"

Rhaenys bites her lip. Should she tell Robb of her fire-scrying? If they are to be married, then yes, she should. She intends for there to be no more secrets between them.

"I can see things in the fire," she says, "real and true things of the present and past, but never the future. If I add enough blood I can even show these things to other people."

He stares at her. "Is this another part of your fire dancing magic?" He finally asks.

Rhaenys nods. “Yes.” 

“Show me.”

She grins and tries to stand. Her legs, still wobbly, buckle and Robb catches her. Carefully, he carries her to the chair beside the fire. "Here. Are you comfortable?"

Rhaenys smiles and grabs his hand, pressing a kiss to his fingers in an impulsive gesture of affection. "I am very comfortable, thank you. Do you have a knife?"

Robb hands her the dagger from his belt. Sitting a little straighter she takes the sharp edge and draws it across her forearm. Scarlet blood wells up in a line. From beneath lowered lashes she glances at Robb. He watches her with a slight frown but he doesn't say anything about the blood.

She leans forward, letting the blood from the knife drip into the fire. The flames hiss as the blood drops. The magic rises like a mist, invisible but soft as silk. She grips it in gentle hands and begins to weave it through the flames.

Slowly, an image begins to take shape: a small urchin child and a massive, hulking man.

Rhaenys' blood drops down her arm and she guides it into the fire. The tongues twist and morph, gray stone replacing the orange in the heart of the flames. The girl doubles over, cackling and pointting at the giant man with a scarred face.

Robb's chair creaks as he leans forward. "Arya?" 

It's a broken whisper and Rhaenys smiles. "Yes," she says, "Arya." Her hands, hovering over the fire, twist and the image pulls back.

Arya and the man stand before a massive gate at the end of a long, rocky ravine. Guards stare down at them, watching as Arya laughs and laughs.

"What is she saying?"

Rhaenys tilts her head. "I can hear her in my head. She's laughing because....because the guards just told the man that Lysa Arryn is dead and he's not going to get a reward." She looks around. "Lysa Arryn, the Lady of the Vale?"

Robb's hands are white on the arms of his chair. He doesn't seem to hear her, blue eyes arrested by the image of his youngest sister whole and hale.

"Robb?"

He jerks, blinking at her. "What?"

"Lady Lysa Arryn of the Vale is dead."

"I - I don't…" he takes a deep breath. "Lysa Arryn is dead and Arya is in The Vale. Someone will need to go get her."

Rhaenys nods. "I'll go. We can leave tomorrow."

"Rhaenys," he starts but she shakes her head.

The Targaryens need The Vale so that is where she shall go. More importantly, she cannot risk The Vale choosing to bend the knee to House Stark.

"You are needed to wage war," she says. "You must press your advantage. Rally your men and take back Harrenhall."

"And what of Winterfell?" Robb demands, standing to pace furiously before the fire. "Bolton's Bastard took Winterfell back but his father betrayed us. The Boltons need to be taken out by the roots."

"Allow House Targaryen to prove our friendship to The North," Rhaenys responds. "I will escort your mother to The Vale so she can be reunited with your sister and then I will take half our Unsullied and liberate Winterfell. Let me prove to The North that House Targaryen are true friends. Let me prove to your people that I will make a good Queen of the North."

Robb stops, turning to study her with serious blue eyes. "I will not send women to fight my battles for me."

"A woman is as capable as a man," she informs him. "Regardless, you are allocating resources. You cannot be everywhere at once, _mi amor_."

Robb considers her, then he kneels before her, placing his hands in her lap, peering into her face with love and adoration. "I love you," he says. "You believe you can retake Winterfell?"

A smile spreads across her face. She leans down, pressing a kiss to his lips. "I know I can," she whispers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more note to add: I have plans to explore Lyanna and Jon's relationship eventually. However I will not be discussing them at this time as neither Lyanna nor Jon are the focus of this story.


End file.
